Knicks relying on their greatest strength with glory just one win away

SAN ANTONIO — It’s right there. 

It’s right freakin’ there. 

The Knicks’ first championship since 1973 — and only third in franchise history — is right there. Etching their place in New York legend is right there. Glory is right there. 

The Knicks just have to reach out and grab it. 

They carry their 3-1 NBA Finals lead into Game 5 at the Frost Bank Center for Game 5 on Saturday, just one step away from immortality. 

“The biggest thing is everybody has to stay present,” coach Mike Brown said on Friday. “You have to be present. You can’t think about the outcome. It’s about the process, the next play, the next play, the next play. 

“Sometimes you can think about the process, and it not work out. But when you’re playing against other great teams especially, that’s how you have to take it because anybody’s mind can start wandering when you think about the outcome.” 

The Knicks this postseason have bludgeoned their opponents in closeout games. Between Game 6 against the Hawks in the first round, Game 4 against the 76ers in the second round and Game 4 against the Cavaliers in the conference finals, the Knicks won by a combined 118 points. 

“I’ve said this multiple times, the hardest game to win is the one that ends someone’s season,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “So we’ve got to be our best version tomorrow.” 

Despite Towns’ sentiment, the Knicks have made closeout games look like their easiest, not their hardest games. By the end of the first three rounds, they completely sucked the soul out of their opponents and left them with little will to keep competing. They left no doubt. 

There is one characteristic that has given them that ability. 

“Their level of maturity,” Brown said. “Obviously, we have some veteran guys on the team. But you can be a veteran and still have a little bit of immaturity about you, as we all know. From top to bottom, this group is pretty mature. That rubs off on the rest of the group. It makes my job easier. 

“We’ve been preaching all year that it’s about the next possession, the next possession, the next possession. We understand any time you try to play a closeout game, the level of desperation for your opponents increases, the level of desperation for the fans of your opponents is increased. You have to bring your best effort.”

That sense of desperation should be natural to the Spurs, who are trying to save their title hopes. But, when up 3-1 in the series, it would be natural for the Knicks to not have that same level of desperation, particularly after such an emotional, thrilling and historic comeback win in Game 4. 

“I think whenever you win or lose a game, that night you’re going to think about it, think about the things you’ve done well or what you did wrong,” Jalen Brunson said. “I’ve always told myself when you wake up the next day, it’s time to turn the page. Yes, we won, but we still have a lot of work to do. We have a lot to learn. We didn’t play our best basketball. We still have a lot to revisit to make sure that we don’t really put ourselves in that position again. 

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“But honestly, we still have to continue to have the belief that we’ve had. It’s really important from that aspect.”

Playing with desperation first emerged when they trailed 2-1 in the first round. It carried them throughout their 13-game winning streak. 

The Spurs, at least publicly, are steadfast that they have not yet lost their confidence like the Knicks’ previous three opponents did. Victor Wembanyama said “everybody” on the team knows they will — not can — come back in the series. Stephon Castle expects to make history. 

And this series hasn’t exactly been straightforward — the Knicks have trailed by double-digits all four games and by as much as 29 in Game 4. All of the first four games of the series have been within four points in the final minute of regulation, the first time that’s happened in the Finals since 1973, when the Knicks beat the Lakers. 

The series has been closer than perhaps the 3-1 lead indicates. 

“We spoke about it multiple times,” Towns said. “We’ve got to approach every game like it’s 0-0. We’ve got to have that kind of desperation that it is to win Game 1 of a playoff series. We’ve got to go in there with the understanding of no comfortability, just really be desperate, execute at a high level. Gameplan discipline has to be at a high level.”

Elation awaits on the other side of desperation.