The New York Knicks are going to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999, and they did not just sneak in. They kicked the door off the hinges.
New York swept the Cleveland Cavaliers 4-0 in the Eastern Conference Finals, closing it out with wins of 115-104 in overtime, 109-93, 121-108, and a 130-93 demolition. A sweep of a top Eastern seed is not supposed to look this easy.
The scary part for the rest of the league is how the Knicks are playing. They have won 11 games in a row. Over that stretch they own the best point differential in basketball at plus-262, and they have not lost a game in over a month.
That is not a hot streak. That is a team peaking at the exact right moment, and they get to rest while the Western Conference beats itself up.
Cleveland never had an answer. The Cavs entered as a legitimate contender and left looking like a team that needs to rethink its core. When you lose a conference finals game by 37, the questions get loud fast.
New York now waits on the winner of Thunder versus Spurs, a series tied 3-3 with Game 7 set for Saturday in Oklahoma City. The Knicks will have had nearly a week off by the time the Finals tip on June 3 on ABC.
Rest matters in June. Fresh legs win close games in the fourth quarter, and the Knicks are about to have the freshest legs of anyone left standing.
There is a real argument that New York is the best team remaining regardless of who comes out of the West. The Thunder and Spurs have spent two weeks trading body blows. The Knicks have spent that time watching film and getting healthy.
You can talk yourself into the Western champ being battle-tested. You can also look at plus-262 over 11 games and understand that the Knicks have been better than everybody, by a lot, for over a month.
This is the moment Knicks fans have waited a generation for. Madison Square Garden has not hosted Finals basketball since the days of Latrell Sprewell and Allan Houston. Now it gets it back, and the team showing up is rolling.
The pick here is simple. Whoever survives the West will be tired, banged up, and walking into a building that has waited 27 years to lose its mind. New York is the favorite, and it earned that label the hard way.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
