BOSTON — Cameron Payne summed up the vibes in four words.
The New York Knicks guard sat at his locker following the first of two improbable takedowns in Boston. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head up with the exhausted grin of someone who had just emerged victorious from an unexpected brawl.
“Thank God for Detroit,” he quipped to no one in particular.
Payne laughed. Mikal Bridges and Miles “Deuce” McBride, seated on either side of Payne, chuckled along with him. Anyone in Payne’s vicinity knew what he meant.
Payne lives in jest. This was no different, a facetious reference to a hard-fought first-round series against the Pistons during which both teams traded off forgetting how to dribble, how to shoot and how to pass a basketball. A smidgen of truth can hide inside humor.
Each of those six Detroit finishes came down to the wire, some to the final possession. Game 1 of the Knicks’ second-round series against the Boston Celtics, as Payne alluded, was another hideous experience: missed 3s, a squandered 20-point lead and enough grit to fill a Tom Thibodeau fever dream. And it concluded with another New York win, this one in overtime.
The Pistons might have been a young, 44-win team, one the Knicks would have regretted losing to if not for the late-game heroics of Jalen Brunson and others, but the fabric of the Knicks is no longer the same as it was before the playoffs began. Something, whether you want to call it psychology or discipline or toughness, rejiggered during that six-game slugfest with Detroit.
Two days after Payne’s comment, the Knicks reran the same episode against the Celtics:
They fell down exactly 20 points on the road with a few minutes to go in the third quarter. They rushed back as the Celtics missed jumper after jumper on the way to 25-percent shooting from deep. And they deployed a tenacious Bridges to snatch the basketball away from an All-Star wing and seal the victory of a one-possession game.
Now, a team whose fortitude once came into question, one that went 0-8 against the Eastern Conference’s top two seeds during the regular season, has pulled off two historic comebacks against the defending champions.
“We’ve gone through a lot of fire,” McBride said. “And we’re gonna walk through it together.”
These sorts of wins were not part of the Knicks’ identity heading into the postseason, but the playoffs will either expose your flaws or force you to evolve.
Six consecutive New York games, dating back to the third one against the Pistons, have come down to the final possession. It’s not like the first couple against Detroit were easy, either. The Knicks had a chance to tie Game 2 with under a minute to go but Bridges clanked a jumper, and they lost. Meanwhile, the Pistons led by eight points during the fourth quarter of Game 1, only for the Knicks to bang out a 21-0 run to win it.
These were not just close games against the Pistons. They were free-for-alls. Defenders brutalized dribblers. Screeners acted as if they were wearing armor. Fouls were no longer fouls. The Knicks’ lack of physicality was their biggest flaw during the season. It is no longer a problem as they fight the Celtics.
It’s as if the Pistons beat it into them. And it’s as if mental strength accumulated from there.
The Knicks have a model when they get down big, just as they have twice against Boston.
During stoppages, if only to make sure it’s said out loud, they remind themselves of the chaos that is now their world, of how they’ve survived it for weeks.
“We’ve been here before,” they tell each other, as Bridges explained.
Bridges said that as the Knicks trailed Game 2, he told teammates during timeouts he was “pretty sure we’re gonna win this game.” After going scoreless during the first three quarters, Bridges went for 14 points in the fourth and once again stamped an upset with the greatest defensive play of New York’s season.
In Game 1, it was the heist of Jaylen Brown at the buzzer. In Game 2, it was the engulfing of Jayson Tatum as the clock expired.
“You can look in everybody’s eyes and it’s kinda not a stressed look,” Bridges said. “It’s kinda like a confident look, knowing, all right, let’s see how much time is left and just take it one play at a time.”
The Knicks have mastered overstaying their welcome. At least against the Celtics, it’s how they’ve configured these comebacks.
All evidence suggested the Knicks would get through the upstart Pistons but fall in Boston. And no, this was not just a sentiment bestowed upon the organization from the supposedly venomous media machine. Various people inside the Knicks recognized the team was imperfect.
The Knicks began the year with a high-powered offense that lost steam over the second half. As spring approached, their issues against elite competition only seemed to compile.
The Knicks got a chance to redeem themselves against the Eastern Conference’s best teams just after the All-Star break. Instead, nightmarish weekend materialized — a 37-point drubbing at the hands of the Cleveland Cavaliers on a Friday and a beatdown from the Celtics on a Sunday, when Boston led by as many as 27.
Another opportunity against those two popped up in April, this time at Madison Square Garden. Again, they failed the test. With less than a week to go in the season, they let go of an 11-point advantage and fell to the Celtics in overtime. Three days later, they went up 23 on the Cavs, then lost.
The Knicks are not playing the same way stylistically. Thibodeau has revamped their base defense against Boston. The strategy is working. But beyond the X’s and O’s, a formerly questionable group has absorbed more punches than it’s given out for eight consecutive postseason games. It remained the last one standing in six of them and is now two wins from the conference finals.
Scars build character, even if they form in the first round.
(Top photo: Maddie Meyer / Getty)
