Detroit – The love of fans and the media for the Knicks last season lived strong and is dying hard. They surpassed excessively. They surpassed. They were, in many ways, the incarnation of that glorified identity of the 90 knicks.
While the dedicated fan of the Knicks and the enemy public rapper Chuck D tweeted on Saturday, “Donte Divinzzo has a cult of cult that follows in New York.”
But Divinzzo and those Knicks have gone, replaced by greater expectations, an identity to write down the delicacy on the sand and a squad that is sitting two victories from the progress to other semifinals of the conference.
Josh Hart’s Saturday, who is among the most important delays of the last season’s team, was to hug these new Knicks instead of living in the past.
“If you continuously look back and compare with the previous year and the teams before, you lose the perspective of what you have,” Hart said. “And this team: we don’t care about hardness, the bee feels that we have the hardness, but we also feel that we have the offensive fire power to go out and climb 140 points. Therefore, it does not achieve not. I am simply trying myself. We are the Knicks of New York of 2024-25.
In other words, it is time to go back or not.
“The comparisons are the thief of joy,” Hart said. “We are going to compare ourselves to last year, why? We are not going to fall, we don’t understand [Isaiah Hartenstein]We don’t have [Julius Randle]. … we have none of those guys. And now we have a totally different group and a totally differentiate. “
This Knicks iteration has an advantage of the 2-1 series in game 4 on Sunday afternoon at Little Caesars Arena. It is almost certain that a victory would ensure the progress teams with an advantage of 3-1 has won more than 95 percent of those series, with a possible second round that is coming against Mighty Celtics.
On Saturday, the Knicks practiced in a high school gym outside of Detroit, with Tom Thibodeau preaching for the elimination of distractions.
“Noise, that’s your work [in the media] To create. So we have to stay away from that, and for us, it is to concentrate on what we have to concentrate. It’s not easy, “said Thibodeau.” I think the playoffs, there is an emotional part of that. And there are the media, social networks, much there. So eliminate those things. Either praise or criticism, it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is what we think. Get ready to play. You have to understand what he wins in this league. “
Much of the “noise” on this series has been with respect to physical levels. In game 2, the Knicks were soft and lost.
In the victory of game 3 on Thursday, they were aggressive and forceful or, as the center of Pistons Paul Reed said on Saturday: “They were holding, pushing, making us work for each place, every centimeter.”
Physical discussion frequently reds on the Knicks last season, who lost in the playoffs due to injuries and talents, rarely because they were overcome.
But the purpose of restructuring trade in the list specifically by Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns-Was to raise the ceiling. It worked for an efficient score with an initial alignment that pushed the Knicks to the fifth in the offensive qualification doors the regular season.
Will it work in the playoffs?
Knicks can take another step to try it on Sunday in Detroit, with one eye in the future instead of last season.
“Playoffs time is different,” Hart said. “Obviously, you want to go out and win every game. That is not realistic, but we only won all the games. We do not focus on resting or trying to turn it into a short series or not. We want to go out and win. It never really changes.”