What Makes a Failure?

What would quantify a failure for this Knicks post-season?

No matter what happens in the playoffs with the New York Knicks, this regular season has been a resounding success. Very few in Knicks Nation had the Knicks winning over 45 gamers. In a pre-season Posting & Toasting roundtable on this site, I was the only one with higher expectations. In the discussion, I said the following,

“Escobedo: This is the year of the 50 burger. Brunson provides the team its first All-Star-caliber point guard since Walt “Clyde” Frazier. He’s fearless, stoic, and a dawg — terms absent from Knicks point guard play for over three decades. Brunson makes everyone better and the game easier for all. You add his intangibles to the deepest roster in the East, and it’s good enough for the 6th seed.”

Only Russell Richardson agreed with my sixth-seed optimism. The Knicks currently sit in the fifth seed, advancing our expectations. And while they didn’t hit 50 wins, their 47 wins could have certainly met my expectations had Julius Randle not been injured. Concerning their playoff expectations, I was the only one who foresaw a first-round win. In terms of their “x-factor” and “ ceiling,” I said the following:

“Escobedo: Thibodeau. The season’s ceiling depends on how our curmudgeon coach handles rotations, minutes, and, most of all, Randle. Is he able to bench Randle during stretches where he is a negative-impact player? Can he resist the urge to bench the kids when they’re hot on a blitzkrieg run? Can he restore the team’s defensive identity while allowing Jalen Brunson to take the ball out of Randle’s hands? If he can — and the achievement of such cannot be overstated — then this team can potentially shock the world come playoff time. And no, not in the sense of making the Finals like the ‘99 squad, but definitely getting out the first round, and maybe beyond.”

The most important phrase there is “shock the world.” I believe we will get out of the first round as I did then. The Cleveland Cavaliers are a favorable matchup for us for many reasons I laid out in a previous article I wrote for P&T. Pundits like Stephen A Smith will try to tell you if the Knicks lose to the Cavaliers, the entire season is a failure. That’s a whole ass mess. This series is not a referendum on whether or not the Knicks missed out on Donovan Mitchell. We have already proved we didn’t. Jalen Brunson’s career year cleared that argument up. The players we kept who would have been included in that trade, Quentin Grimes and Mitchell Robinson, have been crucial to our defense, shooting, and offensive rebounding. Both have a legitimate case to be on the Third-Team All-Defense.