The Knicks are one win away from reaching the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since consecutive trips in 1999 and 2000.
And Tom Thibodeau sees similarities between his current team and the ones he served as an assistant coach under head coach Jeff Van Gundy a quarter-century ago.
“I think the togetherness and tenacity. Every player is different, every team is a little different, but I think the commitment to each other, that’s similar,” Thibodeau said Tuesday following the Knicks’ Game 5 victory over the Pacers. “I think the toughness, that aspect of it is similar. But we still got a long way to go.”
Led by Thibodeau and current star Jalen Brunson, the Knicks will take a 3-2 series lead into Game 6 on Friday night in Indiana.
They advanced to the NBA Finals as a No. 8 seed in 1999 before falling to the Spurs in five games, and they lost in the Eastern Conference Finals the next year to Reggie Miller and the Pacers in Patrick Ewing’s final season with the team.
Several members of those squads were in attendance at Tuesday’s game at the Garden: Ewing, Allan Houston, Larry Johnson, Latrell Sprewell and Herb Williams.
“Every year, I felt with Patrick and John [Starks] and Larry and Spree and those guys, we always felt like we had a chance to win it, and we went deep every year if we were healthy,” said Thibodeau, who was a Knicks assistant from 1996-2003. “There was a consistency to it, every year you felt like you had a good chance to win [the championship].
“I’ve done it once as an assistant in Boston [in 2008], but you need some good fortune. We got to the Finals in ’99, we had two big shots, Allan’s shot obviously against Miami, and Larry’s 4-point shot against Indiana. You need good fortune to go along with it, but you need a commitment of the team to each other to get that done.”
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According to a picture posted on social media by the Knicks, there were at least 13 alumni at Tuesday’s victory — most prominently Walt “Clyde” Frazier and Bill Bradley, members of the Knicks’ last championship teams in 1970 and 1973.
Starks, Carmelo Anthony, Stephon Marbury, Tim Thomas, Wilson Chandler and Kyle O’Quinn also were in attendance.
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