The Knicks are looking more and more like a team of destiny with each passing win

New York pulled off a historic comeback win over the Cavaliers in Game 1 in the latest version of a miracle run

Sam Quinn

May 20, 2026

12:22 am ET

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7 min read

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Indulge me for a moment, I'm about to get romantic about basketball. The best teams in the NBA typically operate on two parallel tracks. There's the obvious, externally driven pursuit of a championship, which boils down to beating the team in front of you. And then there's also the quieter, internally driven pursuit of a team finding its best self. Of figuring out exactly how it needs to play and who needs to occupy what roles before ultimately achieving a very rare sort of basketball harmony.

Not all champions get there. It's possible to talent your way to the title. Not all contenders that get there become champions. The Pacers last season comes to mind as one of the all-time "whole is greater than the sum of its parts" teams in league history. When you get both, you achieve a sort of basketball Nirvana. Think of the 2014 San Antonio Spurs and their ball-movement hurricane or the 2011 Dallas Mavericks digging deep enough to out-tough the Miami Heat superteam. These teams aren't just champions. They're revered years after they're gone, achieving a level of basketball immortality reserved for history's most beloved teams.

We have a long way to go. Seven victories to be exact, four of which would need to come against a heavily favored Western Conference champion. But with each passing game, it's starting to feel more and more like the New York Knicks can be that sort of team. That they have found themselves in the crucible of the playoffs and have emerged as 2026's team of destiny.

The ball started rolling after Game 3 of New York's first-round series against Atlanta. Karl-Anthony Towns spent the year expressing frustration with his role. Everything clicked into place in Game 4. Mike Brown started using him effectively as a point center, operating as a passing hub behind the arc, and the whole offense soared. With Towns playing the best defense of his career and the whole team locked in beside him, New York won its next seven games by 185 combined points. These are the 2014 Spurs-esque games, though admittedly against far lesser opponents. They are the ones that made you feel as though the Knicks were playing a different sport than their opponent.

That wasn't Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. The Knicks, coming off a nine-day break that was longer than the 2026 All-Star break, were flat for three and a half quarters. They trailed by 22 points with roughly seven minutes left on the clock. But the Knicks never took their foot off the gas.

They knew not to, because one year ago, they were on the other side of a game very much like this one. They led the Pacers by 14 with 2:51 remaining in the fourth quarter of Game 1 of last year's Eastern Conference Finals. We know how that game went. An avalanche of Aaron Nesmith 3s. A Lazy Knicks offense leading to turnovers and ugly misses. Missed free throws. Tyrese Haliburton's miraculous, above-the-backboard bounce at the buzzer to send the game to overtime. One of the ugliest chokes in franchise history.

Though the series would last five more games, that game was the death of the old Knicks, the defeat that cost Tom Thibodeau his job. He built the culture that got them there, but couldn't adapt enough to get them across the finish line. The adjustment he refused to make is the one that swung this game for the Knicks.

Josh Hart offered to come off the bench before Game 6 of New York's second-round series against Boston a season ago. Thibodeau declined the offer despite mountains of on-off data suggesting he should make the change. New York lost Games 1 and 2 against Indiana largely because of the minutes their starters lost. He subbed Hart out in Game 3, but for backup center Mitchell Robinson. Despite having an all-time shooting center in Towns, Thibodeau refused to lean into five-out lineups that the numbers screamed would be unstoppable.

Cleveland didn't guard Hart all night. He made just one of his five 3-point attempts. With 9:59 remaining in the fourth quarter, he was subbed out for the last time. With 7:52 remaining in the fourth quarter, Brown finally pulled the trigger on an adjustment fans had waited two years for: the four starters plus an elite shooter (in this case, Landry Shamet). From there, the Knicks outscored the Cavaliers 44-11.

The strategy was not only simple but familiar. For much of the last several years, the Knicks have too easily reverted to Jalen Brunson-ball, allowing him to monopolize the offense at everyone else's expense. The rest of the team lost its rhythm. It seeped into their defense. Everyone seemed unhappy.

The Knicks dealt with none of that at the end of Game 1 Tuesday night. The team knew the assignment and eagerly executed: play your butts