The Knicks aren’t bothering with the appetizers and the bread bowl; they’re going right to the grill, ordering the steak first. They’re plunging their arm right to the bottom of the cooler, elbow-deep in ice, to fetch the coldest beer. It’s good this way. It’s better this way. Walk straight to the deep end of the pool.
Jump right in.
See if the water’s fine.
It’ll be the Celtics on tap for the opener, and why not? The Celtics are the standard-bearer in the East, and along with the Bucks right around a 4/1 favorite to win the NBA title. They have their Big Two back in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, they have old friend Kristaps Porzingis in the family now, they have Jrue Holiday in the fold.
They’re a beast. They are the team to beat. So the Knicks will get an immediate read on where they are and who they are, and get an up-close look at where they want to go.
“We know how talented they are,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “It’ll show you exactly where we are and what we have to work on.”
Of course, he’s Tom Thibodeau. So while his interest will surely be piqued to see what his team looks like against an elite opponent, he always defaults back to the big picture.
“It’s a long season,” he said. “I want our focus to be on what we do every day, don’t skip ahead at all. If we win we don’t want to be too excited. If we lose, just focus on daily improvement and what we have to do to be successful. There are no shortcuts to this.”
Most of these Knicks were in the house two years ago, when the Celtics and Knicks opened up the season at the Garden and the Knicks won a hugely entertaining 138-134 double-overtime thriller, part of a tidy 5-1 start for the Knicks, part of a scuffling 18-21 start for the C’s. By season’s end — when the Knicks failed even to make the play-in tournament and the Celtics fell just two wins shy of an 18th banner — it was hard to even remember opening night.
It really is a long season.
But it is also a season that carries the most hope, and the most genuine optimism of any in a long, long time. The Knicks won 47 games a season ago, won a playoff series, played the eventual conference champion Heat to six hard-fought games and will mostly run it back with the same cast.
Anyone looking at this rationally understands that there is a distinct caste system this season, and the Knicks are still outside looking in at the genuine contenders — the Celtics, the Bucks, the Nuggets, the Suns, the Lakers. There is a gap there. No matter what happens Wednesday night at the Garden, there will be no definitive judgments.
Still, it’ll be interesting to see just how wide that chasm seems, and feels, at season’s start.
“It’s going to be a challenge,” Jalen Brunson said. “They have great players, they’re well-coached, they have a lot of big pieces to do big things. We’ve got to be ready to go. Who’s going to want it more?”
Brunson, of course, had a debut season in New York that belongs right up on the shelf of other essential imports who helped change cultures and fortunes, up there with the Kidds and the Messiers and the Hernandezes. The new challenge will be to build on that, to expand. His presence helped make everyone else better a year ago. Now the mission is to lift that ceiling even higher.
It won’t be a soft landing zone. Of the Knicks’ first 11 games, nine will be against teams that made the postseason last season, and one of the others — San Antonio on Nov. 8 — will be the first genuine must-see game at the Garden this season since it’ll be the New York City launch party for rookie phenom Victor Wembanyama.
“Our history,” Thibodeau said, “is that we get better as the year goes along.”
So Wednesday night isn’t everything, and a win won’t guarantee anything, same as something like a 4-7 start won’t assure a thing. Still, right from the jump, we’ll be able to get a read on these Knicks — who they are, what they can be. It’s an open-ended question. And it’ll be surplus of fun searching for clues to the answer all along the way.
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