It’s a mindset that the Knicks believe helped them change course in the series. But it’s also a mindset that can be difficult to recreate when the circumstances don’t match it.
After their Game 4 rout of the Hawks on Saturday — which evened the series at 2-2 — multiple Knicks pointed to a level of “desperation” and “urgency” that they played with, having entered the game trailing 2-1 in the series. Beforehand, Miles McBride said they felt like they were “playing for our lives.”
And it was noticeable, as the Knicks came out with a tenacity that had gone missing earlier in the series. But returning home to Madison Square Garden with the series tied, it could be difficult to manufacture that mindset without the weight of a deficit.
“No, this is what we work all year for, what you work all summer for, for an opportunity to play in the playoffs,” Jalen Brunson said after practice Monday. “There’s not a lot of motivation left that’s needed, really. It’s just, this is the opportunity for teams to go and put their names in history if they want it. So, that’s the only motivation.”
This Knicks core has been a group that constantly seems to need a bit of a wake-up call before they get their act together. During the regular season, there were the constant slow starts to games, which often didn’t end up hurting them due to their status as the best fourth-quarter team in the league. They had to endure a stretch in which they lost nine of 11 before they got back to looking like how a contender is supposed to look. In this series, they had to fall behind 2-1 before delivering their best performance of the season.
It’s like they need to face a bit of adversity to play their best.
“I believe they’re ready,” coach Mike Brown said Monday. “This group’s a relentless group. They’re an experienced group. They perform best, it seems, when their backs are against the wall. So I believe our guys are ready.”
Playing well when their backs are against the wall is an admirable trait, but the repeated need for a wake-up call is something that can certainly come back to bite them. In the regular season, when teams are more so going through the motions, they found it easier to overcome early deficits and step on the gas when needed.
In the playoffs, where intensity is higher and opposition is better, a lack of intensity from the jump is much harder to overcome — as proven by their failed comeback attempt in Game 3.
Maintaining the right mindset throughout an entire game is something that has largely eluded this core going on two seasons now.
“It has to be even higher, honestly. … We just have to have a higher level of desperation because we know they’re not gonna come in and try to ease into this game,” McBride said Monday.
“This is the playoffs. Nobody’s just gonna hand you a win, hand you a game. Obviously, our two losses were very close games. But you don’t lose the games always at the end of games. It’s a possession here in the first half, or you missed a box-out or somebody did a run to the lane and there wasn’t anybody to kick it out to. It was the little things like that that we’re more focused on and have to be focused on going forward.”
The experience advantage is one area the Knicks do have an edge over the Hawks. Younger teams — particularly underdogs like the Hawks — can find it hard to keep their emotions in check and instead play out of control. That the Knicks have been there, done that is supposed to give them a leg up.
So, balancing that sense of desperation with poise is important.
“Experience teaches you a lot,” Karl-Anthony Towns said after Game 4. “Just because we won one game, the playoffs is always, you win a game, you’re the best team in the world; the highs are high. And when you lose, you’re the low of lows and the worst team ever. So, just staying on the way and being in the middle ground and just consistently trying to find ways to get better and improve as the series moves along. Next game is gonna be the most important game, the most desperation we need to present to the fans and to ourselves.”
Play desperate, but also play under control.
That is the pendulum in front of the Knicks.