Knicks aren't like last season's team, but might be better
Knicks guard Josh Hart (3) races for the ball against Detroit Pistons guard Dennis Schroder, left, during the second half of Game 2 of an NBA basketball first-round playoff series, Monday, April 21, 2025. Credit: AP/Angelina Katsanis
DETROIT — After five technical fouls, one flagrant foul, multiple shoves and countless jawing with the Pistons on Thursday night, the Knicks dusted themselves off with a 2-1 lead after three games, measuring up to the physicality and toughness that Detroit tried to inflict upon them.
But just because they answered the call in Game 3 in the deafening Little Caesars Arena doesn’t mean they want to hear comparisons — not to the opposition but to the team they were a year ago.
With a chance to take control of this series Sunday afternoon in Game 4, the Knicks wanted to focus on the next 48 minutes only, not thinking about what was lost from last year’s team.
“Comparisons are the thief of joy,” Josh Hart said. “We’re going to compare ourselves to last year, for what? We don’t got Donte [DiVincenzo]. We don’t got [Isaiah Hartenstein]. We don’t got [Julius Randle]. We don’t got Jericho [Sims], Daquan [Jeffries], Charlie [Brown]. We don’t have any of those guys. And now we got a totally different group and a totally different personality.
“So if you continue to look back and compare yourself to years prior and teams prior, you lose the perspective of what you have. And this team, we don’t care about the toughness because we feel like we have the toughness, but we also feel like we have the offensive firepower to go out there and put up 140.
“So it doesn’t really affect us. I just think it’s idiotic to compare us to the past because we’re the New York Knicks of 2024-25. And it’s either you get behind us or you don’t. And if you’re not, stay on that side when we have success.”
To get past those comparisons, it certainly would behoove the Knicks to at least reach the Eastern Conference semifinals, the point at which the previous two seasons ended. With the Pistons trying to channel the Bad Boys era of Detroit basketball, it meant standing up to the hard-nosed style. It’s the same one the Knicks made their reputation on before offseason deals that brought in Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns.
“At the end of the day, just win the game,” Bridges said. “Whatever issues you got with somebody, as long as it’s not a detriment to the team or whatever. But at the end of the day, just win the game.”
“That’s the one thing about us: I think we like physicality and we thrive in those type of games and situations,” Hart said. “The NBA is a very petty world. The game is petty. The league [can] be petty at times. They see what’s going on in the summer and then two guys got beef and then that game is opening night.
“So that’s the whole league, including myself, we’re very petty. If a guy has the ball, you smack the ball away just to be annoying. But you know that and our personality, we never really let that frustrate us or let that take us out of our game. I think the only time we really get outside of ourselves is when we’re yelling at refs and focusing on things we can’t control.”
As Hart noted, the Knicks had the toughness in Game 3 but also the production. Four starters had at least 20 points, with Towns and Jalen Brunson reaching 30. Hart scored only six, but provided just about everything else, grabbing 11 rebounds, handing out nine assists and defending players much bigger than his 6-4 frame.
“Sometimes I’ve got to remind myself that I’m a guard,” Hart said. “I find myself being in that dunker spot and stuff like that. So it’s fine. Can’t sit there and say I love it, but that’s the position I’m in right now and I’m going to do that to the best of my ability . . . But you know, I think that’s the good part of being a chameleon. You can adapt to different situations.”
“A lot of people average 20 or higher points in college and then you get a role in the league,” said Bridges, who played with Hart for Villanova.
“Just try to keep getting better every year and keep trying to expand it. He’s doing a good job. Everybody’s dealing with that coming out of college where your role is going to change a little bit coming from college to the league.”
Notes & quotes: Mitchell Robinson did not practice and is sidelined with an illness, but Tom Thibodeau expects him to be available for Game 4.
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
