Knickstape, turned up to eleven

Stephen A. Smith is known for having few soft spots. The assertive, hard-nosed ESPN commentator is bold in his takes, decisive in his tone and is often firm in his showings of emotion -- unless, of course, the New York Knicks are concerned.

The Knicks, long considered one of the NBA's glamour franchises on the mystique of New York City and the allure of playing at Madison Square Garden, have been the equivalent of a pig wearing a double coat of lipstick for the last quarter of a century:

• The franchise's last NBA championship came in 1973 (Smith is quick to remind people that he was five years old at the time).

• The Knicks' last NBA Finals appearance came in the lockout-shortened 1999 season, a five-game defeat at the hands of the young San Antonio Spurs.

• New York's last playoff appearance? The 2012-2013 season, when the franchise won 54 games, its most in a season since 2000. The Knicks bowed out in the second round of the playoffs at the hands of the Indiana Pacers (the Knicks have bad playoff memories of the Pacers).

The Knicks' notoriously loyal, rabid fanbase has undoubtedly suffered watching the repeated lumps the team has taken over the years, perhaps no more publicly than in Smith's famed tirades on ESPN's airwaves. There's the comprehensive "First Take" highlight reel and the backseat Twitter hipshot immediately after the Knicks missed out on Zion Williamson and the number one overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft Lottery. The pièce de résistance, however, is the open to Stephen A.'s radio show the day after the lottery, a scorched-earth diatribe that takes no prisoners and spans more than 20 minutes in length.

All of this is to say that, after going 316-472 in the decade prior, the Knicks' run to a 41-31 record and the Eastern Conference's fourth seed in this year's playoffs is akin to a crystal geyser in a grain-leather desert.

The Knicks' turnaround has been startling to nearly everyone. Fresh off of the hire of Tom Thibodeau as head coach and led by former seventh-overall draft pick Julius Randle, New York's preseason NBA championship odds were set in Vegas at +50,000, tied for lowest in the league; its over/under for wins was set at 21.5, also lowest in the league.

What happened in the five months since the NBA's season tipped off can only be described as a complete flipping of the script. In a league stocked to the gills with fast-paced offensive juggernauts, the Knicks zigged while the rest of the league zagged; the team finished first in the league on defense (104.7 points allowed per game) and boasted the slowest pace in the league (95.9 possessions per game). Thibodeau's fingerprints have been all over the Knicks' season; the league named him a finalist for its Coach of the Year award for his efforts.

Behind Thibodeau, the Knicks have been powered by a cast of gritty characters reminiscent of the physical New York squads of the 1990s. Randle has been at the center of it; his career-high averages in points (24.1 per game), rebounds (10.2 per) and assists (6.0 per) drew Most Valuable Player award conversations. RJ Barrett is blossoming into a second option, averaging nearly 18 points per night in his second season after being drafted third overall in that infamous 2019 NBA Draft. Reggie Bullock has been key to the Knicks' three-point shooting, hitting 41 percent of his shots from outside on the season (New York as a team shot 39.2 percent from three on the year, good for third in the league). Nerlens Noel is averaging more than two blocks per game, controlling the paint and owning the heart of the Knicks' defensive attack.

Everything clicked for the Knicks down the stretch. New York went 16-4 in its final 20 games of the season to seize control of the fourth seed and homecourt advantage in the first round of the 2021 Playoffs against the Atlanta Hawks. The team announced this week that games one and two of the series were sold out at 15,000 fans per game, the largest indoor sporting event in New York since the onset of the pandemic.

Win or lose, thousands of die-hard, win-starved fans will pour into Madison Square Garden on Sunday night to witness their beloved Knicks embark on a playoff journey with a new identity and a renewed sense of a hopeful future. Manhattan will be rocking and alive again.

(For the record, I have the Knicks winning the series against Atlanta in six games.)

Stephen A. Smith and Spike Lee are certainly ready. Turn it up.

Cover photo by Nelson Chenault / USA Today Sports