{"id":76007,"date":"2024-05-03T09:41:17","date_gmt":"2024-05-03T13:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=76007"},"modified":"2024-05-03T09:41:17","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T13:41:17","slug":"knicks-having-most-sustained-playoff-success-in-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/03\/knicks-having-most-sustained-playoff-success-in-decades\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks Having Most Sustained Playoff Success in Decades"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Knicks<\/a> haven\u2019t had much success since trading Patrick Ewing<\/a> prior to the 2000-01 NBA season. A perennial playoff team during Ewing\u2019s tenure, postseason success has often evaded them in the 20+ years since.<\/p>\n

The Knicks made the playoffs for 14 straight seasons from 1987-88 until 2000-01 (only the last of those seasons was without Ewing). The team reached two NBA Finals in that time.<\/p>\n

For much of the 2000s and 2010s, New York fans were pining to go back to those days. Those who have remained patient are finally starting to be rewarded.<\/p>\n

The Knicks defeated the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday by the score of 118-115<\/a>. New York won their first-round series in six games and will move on to play an old rival in the second round, the Indiana Pacers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Knicks Having Most Sustained Playoff Success in Decades<\/h2>\n

Drought of Back-to-Back Successful Seasons<\/h3>\n

If a season were to be defined as successful by winning at least one playoff round, it had been a while since the Knicks had back-to-back successful seasons.<\/p>\n

As a matter of fact, it had been nearly 2.5 decades up until yesterday. They made the second round in nine straight seasons from 1991-92 until 1999-00. They reached two NBA Finals and four Eastern Conference Finals in that stretch. The Knicks haven\u2019t advanced to either since.<\/p>\n

Until the last two seasons, New York only advanced once to the second round since 2000. That came in the 2012-13 season when they lost to the Pacers in the second round.<\/p>\n

There were a lot of rough stretches as well. There were no playoff appearances by the Knicks for six straight seasons from 2004-05 until 2009-10, and they didn’t sniff the postseason for seven consecutive seasons from 2013-14 until 2019-20.<\/p>\n

One playoff series win over a 21-season stretch. Now it\u2019s three (and counting?) over 23 seasons.<\/p>\n

Excitement is Back at Madison Square Garden<\/h3>\n

Thursday night\u2019s win over the 76ers has allowed the Knicks to advance to the second round. It\u2019s the first time they\u2019ve advanced at least that far in back-to-back seasons since 1998-99 and 1999-00.<\/p>\n

In the 2023 NBA Playoffs, New York easily dispatched the Cleveland Cavaliers in the opening round in five games. They then lost in six games to the NBA Finals-bound Miami Heat.<\/p>\n

Many will point to signing Jalen Brunson<\/a> in the 2022 offseason as the moment that turned around the franchise. The 27-year-old just finished an opening-round series averaging 35.5 points and nine assists.<\/p>\n

The Knicks have also made other shrewd moves over the past two seasons to improve the roster surrounding him. In the 2022 offseason, they also signed Isaiah Hartenstein<\/a>. He has proven invaluable, especially this season while Mitchell Robinson<\/a> was out for a lengthy period. Josh Hart<\/a> was acquired at the 2023 trade deadline. He has been a do-it-all player who entered the starting lineup with Julius Randle\u2019s<\/a> season-ending shoulder surgery. In the 2023 offseason, the Knicks brought in Donte DiVincenzo<\/a> via free agency. He became the starting shooting guard early on in the season and set the single-season franchise record for three-pointers made. In late December, New York completed a trade with the Toronto Raptors, acquiring OG Anunoby<\/a> (as well as Precious Achiuwa<\/a>). While Anunoby missed ample time with an elbow injury, the Knicks are now 24-5 with him in the lineup.<\/p>\n

The Knicks will now look to reach their first Eastern Conference Finals since 2000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Knicks haven\u2019t had much success since trading Patrick Ewing prior to the 2000-01 NBA season. A perennial playoff team during Ewing\u2019s tenure, postseason success has often evaded them in the 20+ years since. The Knicks made the playoffs for 14 straight seasons from 1987-88 until 2000-01 (only the last of those seasons […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":76029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,62,12,3],"tags":[49186,1553,993,1417,1004,1082],"class_list":["post-76007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba","category-knicks","category-news","tag-2024-nba-playoffs","tag-donte-divincenzo","tag-isaiah-hartenstein","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-josh-hart","tag-og-anunoby"],"modified_by":"Kayla Fonte","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}