Knicks Beat Heat? Tyson Chandler Reflects on 2013

Had the New York Knicks taken their talents to South Beach in the spring of 2013, Tyson Chandler believes it would've been a lucrative trip.

Chandler leaped down the "what if" rabbit hole during an appearance on Showtime's "All the Smoke" podcast, discussing the 2012-13 Knicks group that simultaneously stands as one of the most thrilling yet disappointing NBA teams in recent memory. That team never got a chance to face the eventual champion Miami Heat in the playoffs and Chandler said that probably worked out in South Florida's favor.

“I really honestly feel like, had we gotten past (the second round), I feel like we had a legitimate shot at winning the (NBA Finals) that year," Chandler told hosts Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. "I really feel like we would’ve beat (Miami) that year, with that Knicks team, no offense, but I feel like we had the unit for it."

In that season, the Carmelo Anthony-led Knicks won 54 games, their best output since the 1996-97 campaign, and clinched the second seed on the Eastern Conference playoff bracket. Chandler was invited to the season's All-Star Game alongside Anthony and also earned All-Defensive First Team honors while J.R. Smith was the season's Sixth Man of the Year.

At 82 games, the Knicks stood behind only Miami, which was in the midst of its championship era headlined by Chris Bosh, LeBron James, and Dwyane Wade. The Heat were the defending champions but the Knicks took the four-game season series 3-1 and their victories came by an average margin of 14 points. New York was the only team to beat the Heat three times during the only regular season.

Many expected the Knicks and Heat to do battle in the Eastern Conference Finals, but the Knicks fell to the third-ranked Indiana Pacers in six games in the semifinal round. Miami then disposed of Indiana in seven games before staving off the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals to win the second (and final) championship of the James era.

Asked what went wrong by Barnes and Jackson, Chandler said that a hint of complacency lingered with the team.

“We allowed the success that we had get to us," Chandler recalled. "We (were) in chill mode, like we had done something.”

That Knicks group, which also featured notable contributions from names like Raymond Felton, Kenyon Martin, and Amar'e Stoudemire, was able to generate a streak of three consecutive playoff berths and guided the Knicks to their first postseason series victory since 2000 when they jettisoned the Boston Celtics in the opening round.

Alas for New York, that six-game series win turned out to be the only series victory of the Anthony era (2011-17). They failed to win another until this past spring when they topped Cleveland in five games before they, perhaps ironically, dropped a conference semifinal series to the Heat.

Chandler and Jason Kidd, who previously collaborated on a Miami-conquering NBA Finals run with Dallas in 2011, carried leadership duties throughout the season but he admitted that the Boston series, victorious as it was, partly threw off the Knicks' momentum. The Knicks jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven set but Boston won the next two games, the first in overtime. Smith had missed the two Celtics wins for elbowing Jason Terry during Game 3. The Knicks finally ejected Boston with an 88-80 victory to close things out at TD Garden.

It was a series victory, but one that the Knicks realistically could've swept. Indiana likewise won its opener in six games, erasing the sixth-place Atlanta Hawks.

The opening game of the Knicks-Pacers series at Madison Square Garden was slated for a Sunday afternoon, less than 48 hours after each side's respective first-round clinchers. Chandler said that the Knicks' lost rest (brought about by the extra games to get rid of Boston) and the lack of shootaround opened the second-round set on a bad note.

"They canceled the shootaround, which me and Jason was like, ‘Nah, we’re going to another series, we got to prepare for this team,’” Chandler said. "We ended up not being able to have a shootaround, so we weren’t able to go over our strategy. So Indiana comes in and sneaks Game 1. So now we’re behind the 8-ball.”

Indiana won the first game 102-95 as six Pacers reached double-figures. The Knicks won Game 2 at the Garden but Indiana took the next two at home to create a 3-1 lead that proved impenetrable. New York won another Garden game but the Pacers finished the Knicks off at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in a 106-99 win made infamous by Roy Hibbert's block of a would-be Anthony dunk.

The loss sent the Knicks into a tailspin, as they did not reach the postseason again until 2021. Chandler was bid farewell not long after, as he was sent back to Dallas with Felton in June 2014, forever relegating the Knicks-Heat discussion to the realm of "what if."