Epitome of Perseverance

It is not often when a team is decimated by injuries and can make a run in the playoffs.  The New York Knickerbockers have had quite the season when it came to injuries.  Most teams who sustained the injuries to the players the Knicks had injured would have folded and probably never even made the playoffs, let alone win the number two seed in their conference.

During the regular season, the Knicks had Julius Randle separate his shoulder to eventually start working on coming back before needing season ending surgery.  Mitchell Robinson hurt his ankle and was also out of the lineup for an extended period of time.  The good which came of this was the team found Isaiah Hartenstein to be a serious option at center.  The Knicks then traded for OG Anunoby and not long after bringing him in, he hurt his elbow and needed surgery and would miss significant time.

After all these injuries, as mentioned earlier the Knicks somehow managed to fight their way to the number two seed.  Anunoby came back just in time for the playoffs and would play a pivotal role.  Playing Philadelphia in the first round, we found out how dirty they play and the Knicks and we had Robinson get hurt again as well as Jalen Brunson.  Brunson and Robinson would be able to continue playing but at the same time the team lost another midseason acquisition Bojan Bogdanovic and he would end up needing season ending surgery.

The Knicks would go on to defeat the Sixers in six games despite all the injuries and move on to play the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.  This would be a hard fought series which ended up going seven games and as you can read from a previous blog, Sunday was two best words in sports.

The Knicks would head into the series with Indiana wounded but ready to go.  Early on in the series is when the Knicks learned they would lose Robinson again for the rest of the season due to injuries he sustained during the series with the Sixers.

Brunson would also hurt his foot early in the series in the first half but would come out for the second half and will the Knicks to a game 2 win and put the Knicks up 2-0 in the series.  Also, during game two the Knicks would lose Anunoby once again, this time with a hamstring injury and anyone that knows anything about hamstring injuries is they don’t heal very quickly. 

The Pacers would take the next two in Indiana and come back to New York tied up 2-2.  Without OG the Knicks would fight and win big in game five to pull ahead 3-2.  Alec Burks who had been buried on the bench really stepped up to help the Knicks in this series.  Game six came and another injury cropped up with the heart and soul of this team, Josh Hart seemingly pull an abdominal muscle.  He was severely hampered during game 6 and eventually couldn’t fight through any longer and the Knicks would lose big and head back to New York for game seven.

Game seven came and what do you know Anunoby started the game and you could tell he was severely hampered.  He hit his first two shots but could barely run up and down the floor and would eventually go to the bench and not return.  Hart was able to play and what did we hear in the later stages of game seven but Jalen Brunson was out for the rest of the game due to a left-hand fracture which is of course his shooting hand.  Indiana had a commanding lead for most of the game but in the second half the Knicks would be able to get the score under 10 and would them succumb once again and without Brunson really had no shot.

Although very disappointing and knowing full well a healthy Knicks team would have been able to win this series, this team showed some serious perseverance in being able to advance as far as they did with all the injuries they suffered throughout the season and in the playoffs and the caliber of player who sustained those injuries.  We should be excited for what is to come with this team moving forward into the 2024-25 season after getting back all their players healthy and hopefully make a run with everyone healthy.