JOB’S NOT FINISHED | The heartbreaking, heart-taking Knicks aren’t close to done
· Yahoo Sports
CLEVELAND — The late, great Kobe Bryant is remembered for countless moments, but few more iconic than the response he gave after the Los Angeles Lakers took a 2-0 lead over the Orlando Magic in the 2009 NBA Finals.
Bryant, stone-faced as ever, sat at the podium after Game 2 when a reporter asked why, on the brink of another championship, he showed no emotion. Why the Black Mamba wouldn’t smile.
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“What’s there to be happy about?” Bryant responded. “Job’s not finished. Job finished? I don’t think so.”
The Knicks have more reason to celebrate than any team in franchise history since 1973.
They reached the NBA Finals in Year 1 of a polarizing coaching shift from Tom Thibodeau to Mike Brown. They tied Bryant’s 2001 Lakers for the third-longest playoff winning streak in NBA history at 11 games. They became the first team to win the NBA Cup and reach the NBA Finals in the same season. And when elimination games arrived, they turned them into public executions: a 51-point closeout win over the Atlanta Hawks, a 30-point sweep-clincher over the Philadelphia 76ers, then a 37-point demolition of the Cleveland Cavaliers to win the Eastern Conference.
And still, it isn’t enough.
Not for a franchise that declined to raise an NBA Cup banner. Not for a city that calls itself the Mecca of basketball yet hasn’t celebrated a title contender like this in decades. Not for a Villanova core now standing four wins from immortality.
The Knicks want all of it. The job’s not finished. And they aren’t pretending otherwise.
“This team is hungry, and that’s the most important thing with the amazing, historical win we had tonight. The celebrations were minimal. We really wanna get back to work,” said Karl-Anthony Towns. “It’s OK for New York, the fans, us, our fan base to enjoy this moment and be jubilant about this — but for us as the players, we understand that the job’s not done.”
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Landry Shamet won’t spend much time soaking in his first NBA Finals appearance. The job’s not finished. Anything beyond a single shower beer inside the Rocket Arena visitors locker room would’ve felt excessive.
Still, he can admit it: this feels “really good.”
And it should.
Shamet quietly swung the Eastern Conference Finals. The veteran wing shot a blistering 11-of-12 from 3-point range against Cleveland, scored 30 points across Games 3 and 4 and entered the Finals having made 17 of his previous 20 attempts from deep over a six-game stretch.
His emergence also underscores one of the clearest differences between the Thibodeau Knicks and the Brown Knicks.
Last postseason, Shamet barely existed in the rotation. He logged two DNPs in the first round against Detroit, then three more against Boston while averaging just 3.7 minutes a night. He didn’t play at all in the first two games of the conference finals against Indiana — both losses — before Thibodeau finally expanded the bench with the season on life support.
This time, Shamet isn’t emergency depth. He’s part of the infrastructure.
And Brown’s willingness to trust him — and trust the bench overall — has transformed one of last season’s biggest weaknesses into a legitimate playoff strength. The Knicks entered this year determined not to run their starters into the ground the way they did during last season’s collapse against Indiana. Shamet became one of the beneficiaries of that philosophical shift, and now, one of the reasons New York is four wins from a title.
“We’ll talk about it later. Like I said, the job’s not done,” said Shamet. “It just means everything to be going to the Finals. And we got a lot more to do.
“We’re obviously very happy, very excited. But like I said, more to do. I enjoy the little shower beer. That was the extent of my celebrating this evening. We’re excited. On to the next one.”
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The Knicks have been here before — within arm’s reach of the NBA Finals only to have history ripped away in last year’s crushing conference finals loss to Indiana. Brown wasn’t here for those scars. But he knows what they feel like. He’s lost in the Finals with LeBron James. He’s lost heartbreaking conference finals series. He understands what those moments leave behind.
Which is why Brown had the Knicks’ video staff pull footage from last year’s Game 6 loss to the Pacers and show his players their faces afterward. He wanted them to remember the feeling.
That feeling has since been replaced by something new: an insatiable desire for more. No more heartbreaks. Only heart-takes.
The Knicks have ripped out three hearts this postseason. The Hawks thought they had a chance after taking a 2-1 lead before the Knicks outscored them by 96 points the rest of the series. The Sixers, fresh off an upset over Boston, practically folded after losing Game 1 by 39. And the Cavaliers? The Knicks could still feel Cleveland’s heartbeat — however faint — all the way back to New York after completing the sweep at Rocket Arena.
“Our group has been playing good basketball, and they’re doing it in different ways. They’re doing it differently depending on who our opponent is,” Brown said. “And when you show that kind of versatility on both sides of the floor, it adds to your belief.”
The Knicks have outscored playoff opponents by an NBA-record 271 points over a 14-game span. They’ve laid waste to every Eastern Conference challenger placed in front of them and now await either the Oklahoma City Thunder or San Antonio Spurs in the Finals.
Their next opponent is tomorrow’s problem.
Today, the Knicks can celebrate. Well, yesterday was for celebrating. The job’s not finished. This team is already back to work.
“Our business is funny. My previous job, I supposedly took [Sacramento] to a point that was higher. and it didn’t work out [for me],” said Brown. “I truly felt this team was an NBA Finals team. I thought we had a true opportunity. Some jobs you take, you get better and you have a chance to make the playoffs. But this one, I felt we legitimately had a chance if we could help them figure it out and the players could stay together during the process, especially when you hit adversity.
“So I did have a belief on Day 1. I didn’t know how it was gonna turn out, but we’re here and there’s a lot of people to thank because of it and it starts with the players.”