These last nine days have been torturous for you. They’ve felt like nine weeks. Maybe you’ve found other diversions to satisfy your basketball jones . Maybe you’ve simply decided that,The Knicks sprinted to the three-quarters pole and then — voila! — the games just disappeared. They’d won three in a row and five out of six, they’d nudged their way six games over .
But now? You could make an argument that the level at which the Knicks were playing heading into the break was as high as at any time since the 2012-13 team that won 54 games and won the franchise’s only playoff series going back to 2000. Even the 41-31 delight of a team from two years ago hadn’t looked this sharp, this focused, this impressive.The Mexican sun probably lessened the disappointment for Hart.Beginning Friday the Knicks officially begin the 22-game bell lap to their season.
It is an appropriate beginning to the final quarter of the season. The Knicks are facing the eighth-toughest schedule the rest of the way, with two games against the Celtics in the next nine days as well as a four-game-in-six days tour through Sacramento, L.A. and Portland that could well define what the Knicks are going to be this year.