Knicks' 'We've been here before' mentality helping them fight their way to 2-0 lead over Boston

BOSTON — It’s hard to say when you know.

People point to the moment Willis Reed hobbled out of the tunnel 55 years ago to inspire an unlikely championship for the Knicks. Maybe it was the black cat passing by the Cubs' dugout in 1969 that put the Miracle Mets on the path to their first World Series title. You don't believe until the ball rolls through Bill Buckner's legs or Eli Manning's pass clings to David Tyree's helmet.

So maybe you don’t know until the season is over or maybe even years later when memories grow and stories are passed down. But in the Knicks' locker room, on the court and on the podium after the game, they couldn’t help but wonder, is something strange afoot for this incarnation of the team?

"Yeah. Umm,” said P.J. Tucker, who is the lone member of the team who has been part of a championship-winning team. “We’re going to see. That’s what makes this fun, right?”

Fun might not be the way to describe much of the games for the Knicks and their fans, particularly in the first two games of the Eastern Conference semifinals as they have spotted the defending champion Celtics 20-point leads in both games and managed to shock the Boston faithful with late-game heroics for come-from-behind victories.

But it isn’t just those two games that have put the Knicks in the unlikely position of knocking out the champs as the series shifts to Madison Square Garden on Saturday. The Knicks have now won five straight playoff road games with Jalen Brunson providing the offensive game-winners without a hint of nerves and Mikal Bridges now coming up with consecutive game-saving steals in the final seconds.

“I don’t think we even know what we’re capable of,” Josh Hart said after Game 2. “We have to continue to build. We have to continue to put together a full game. I think that’s something that we haven’t done during the course of these playoffs. We get leads. We surrender leads. We come back from big leads. We’ve got to figure out a complete game and that can answer some of those questions."

He paused for a moment as fire alarms went off and lights flashed behind him. TD Garden was being evacuated and fire trucks were racing to the arena. Hart added, “Anyone else worried about that?”

Why would a fire alarm deter the Knicks when alarms seem to go off around them all game long and they remain eerily calm?

The odd thing is that since the offseason moves that provided the Knicks with a boost in talent in the starting lineup, the team has spent a season facing questions and criticisms about the toughness — maybe physical and mental — to survive the grind of hard-fought games like these. The Knicks were 0-4 against Boston in the regular season and 0-10 combined against Boston, Cleveland and Oklahoma City, with most of the losses lopsided. Last year’s team was devastated by injuries but just kept coming at opponents until they had no more pieces left. That earned a place in Knicks fans' hearts and something this team may have just earned in this postseason run.

“You always have to believe in each other,” coach Tom Thibodeau said. “You get to the playoffs and it's about your mental toughness, your defense and your teamwork and always having the belief you can do something better and find a way to win. It’s a long game. Keep playing and that’s what they did. This team has been that way all season long and dealt with Mitch [Robinson] being out the first half of the season or more than that. And Jalen took the injury in March and they kept marching forward, and I think that’s important for us.”

“Just keep coming back, keep coming back,” Tucker said. “You’ve seen it the last five or six games, where this series we probably played one good quarter. We’re just fighting, not giving up. Just determination and grit, just grinding games out. That’s all. Not playing great at all but we play hard and play together and we’re figuring it out.

“It’s not something you see right away. Regular season, win, lose, whatever. It’s the playoffs, totally different season. Just grinding games out. I’m scared to see us put it together. Defense, let that push offense.”

These opening chapters may just be a tease.   The Knicks were quick to point out that even as they return home up 2-0 they haven’t accomplished anything. Boston was 33-8 on the road in the regular season — better than they were at home. But the Knicks also believe that there could be something. Maybe they don’t know it yet, but there is something.

“I think we’re just confident, confident knowing we’re just always gonna find a way,” Bridges said. “A lot of us sitting on the bench while we’re down just like, ‘We’ve been here before. We’ve been here before. Pretty sure we’re gonna win this game.’ You can look in everybody’s eyes and it’s kind of not a stressed look. It’s kind of like a confident look, knowing ‘All right, let’s see how much time is left and just take it one play at a time.’ . . . We say it to each other in timeouts, every time we go down . . . Just keep chilling, keep talking to each other. We’ve been here before. And just keep fighting.”

By Steve Popper

steve.popper@newsday.com@StevePopper

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.