{"id":198869,"date":"2026-04-16T01:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T01:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/198869\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T01:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T01:44:10","slug":"knicks-well-aware-they-will-be-judged-on-how-long-playoff-run-lasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/198869\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks well aware they will be judged on how long playoff run lasts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jalen Brunson sat at the podium, moments after the Knicks were eliminated by the Pacers in the conference finals last year, and acknowledged how much had to happen just to get back to where they were<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They wouldn\u2019t just start again in the conference finals. They\u2019d have to go through the preseason, through the regular season, then climb through the playoffs once again. So many things would have to go right along the way. So many potential pitfalls would stand in their way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now comes the defining part.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day,\u201d Karl-Anthony Towns said after practice Wednesday, \u201cWe\u2019ll be judged on what we do on this run.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"JalenJalen Brunson participates in practice at the Knicks\u2019 training facility on April 15, 2026 in Tarrytown, N.Y. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n

All that matters is what comes next and how far the Knicks go this postseason. And just getting back to the conference finals won\u2019t be good enough \u2014 Tom Thibodeau was fired after reaching the conference finals, after all. Owner James Dolan explicitly issued a Finals-or-bust mandate this season, despite Mike Brown being in his first season with the team.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is no escaping that pressure. There is only embracing it, or folding under it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What makes them believe they\u2019re equipped to live up to it?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest, there\u2019s a lot of things that go on that you guys don\u2019t see,\u201d Brunson said Wednesday. \u201cA lot of things we talk about, a lot of things we do that we don\u2019t even say publicly. For a reason \u2014 because we want to keep everything in-house. We want to make sure the people inside this building, inside that locker room, we\u2019re all we got, no matter what.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI have the utmost confidence in them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The trap, of course, is looking ahead to the final piece of that mandate \u2014 reaching the Finals \u2014 and overlooking the immediate challenge right in front of them in the Hawks. <\/p>\n

\"Karl-AnthonyKarl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson participate in practice at the Knicks\u2019 training facility on April 15, 2026 at Tarrytown, N.Y. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n

Flash back to last year, and the Celtics and Cavaliers were widely expected to meet in the conference finals. Neither did. There were much bigger doubts surrounding the Knicks and Pacers, who ended up being the two teams in the conference finals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They must perform every step of the way, meticulously delivering high-stakes results just to get back to where they were last year before they have a chance to exceed it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy that,\u201d Brunson said. \u201cI enjoy the process every single day. Yes, it\u2019s tough. Yes. There\u2019s times, there\u2019s ups and downs and self-doubt creeps in maybe sometimes, but this is something that I enjoy doing and it\u2019s something I worked my entire life for. So I embrace the opportunity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those ups and downs were the theme of the regular season. With the Finals-or-bust mandate hovering over everything, their polarizing performances at times made it seem believable and at times made it seem inconceivable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In truth, that pressure is not just starting now. It\u2019s been a constant all season. They\u2019ve known for a while now that if they fall short, all options are on the table in terms of what changes could be made.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe highs are high and the lows are lows,\u201d Towns said. \u201cYou just weather the storms, you stick with each other. That\u2019s when team bonding and unity are so important, when things aren\u2019t going well. It\u2019s never when things are going great that team bonding is lacking. You test each other when things are going bad. We\u2019ve had those highs of highs this year with the [NBA] Cup. We\u2019ve had the lows of lows with the losing streak. And this team has stuck together. The locker room has been great. So it\u2019s good for us to know that if things are not going well, we\u2019re going to lean into each other and get closer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat\u2019s happening on and off the Garden court\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Knicks by Stefan Bondy, a weekly exclusive on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

That volatility has also helped the best version of the Knicks emerge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started off the year playing one way on offense and one way on defense and we made some pretty big changes throughout the course of the year,\u201d Brown said Wednesday. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve ever gone through a season with a team, as a head coach or as an assistant coach, making the changes that we\u2019ve made with a group of guys. And them continuing to try to stay the course and believe and buy in and all that, to see that from a veteran group, when we\u2019ve hit some adversity even during that time, has a lot to do with their makeup.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

From the moment Brunson delivered his message at the podium, close to midnight May 31, the only thing that has mattered is getting at least one step farther.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve completed the preliminary steps in the preseason and regular season. Finally, here comes the defining part.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jalen Brunson sat at the podium, moments after the Knicks were eliminated by the Pacers in the conference…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4777,1555,21,56784,9,11,1104,10,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-198869","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-jalen-brunson","9":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-playoffs","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-knicks","15":"tag-new-york-news","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}