Brian Windhorst: A Beast Has Awakened In the New York Knicks

Brian Windhorst thinks something woke up inside the New York Knicks, and the people around the league are starting to use a specific word for it.

Rich asked if the Knicks had figured something out. Windhorst pointed straight to a Thursday night in Atlanta, Game 3 of the first round. The Knicks lost. It was one of two back-to-back one-point losses, both decided on final possessions, neither going New York's way.

Then something shifted.

"I wish I could tell you what happened in this team meeting. I don't know what happened on that day," Windhorst told Rich. "But that day when they showed up for game four, they dominated the first whole half of game four and they have not looked like the same team."

The view from the other locker room, according to Windhorst, was even more startling. "You talk to people in Atlanta and they say, holy hell, the team that we played in games four, five, and six were nothing like the team that we played in game one, two, and three."

The Hawks had been confident heading into Game 4. They were up 2-1, knew they had won two games on last-second shots, and understood it could have been 3-0 the other way. "We are right with this team," was the read. They expected a seven-game series. Instead, they got bashed across the bridge of the nose three games in a row.

That momentum carried straight into the second round. Windhorst broke down what he saw against Joel Embiid in Game 1: New York came out in the first quarter with a clear plan to put Embiid in pick and roll, the standard counter, and to push the ball in transition every time they got a defensive rebound so Embiid couldn't get back. The Knicks were faster. They were moving with intent. The actions they ran generated made shots, not just open shots.

Windhorst was careful to credit shotmaking too. New York hit a lot of them. But the underlying point held. "They are playing with such a purpose and a focus on offense right now that it's starting to make you wonder."

The quote that lingered came from coaches and scouts Windhorst has been talking to. "A beast has awakened here," he said. "Is this who they're going to be now?"

The answer, Windhorst allowed, might be yes. The honest counter is that this isn't a team that played this way for three months. He pointed to the mid-season stretch where the Knicks went 2-9. "That's why they're the three seed and not the one seed or two seed," he said.

That's the Knicks question in one breath. The version that won three straight in Atlanta and walked into Round 2 looking dialed in is the version that can win the East. The version that disappeared for two weeks in February is the reason they didn't get home court. Which one is real now, and which one was the warm-up.

Windhorst doesn't have the team meeting tape. He just knows what he saw on the floor after it.