NBA FINALS GAME 3 PREVIEW

KNICKS COACH MIKE BROWN AGAIN FINDS HIMSELF REVELING IN A LONG PLAYOFF WIN STREAK

It was April 23, or 6 1/2 weeks ago. The New York Knicks had just endured their second consecutive one-point loss to the Atlanta Hawks, and this one left them trailing 2-1 in their Eastern Conference first-round series.

Signs of trouble were everywhere.

The mood in New York was abysmal.

Mike Brown’s future as coach was a hot topic.

“Stuff’s going to happen,” Brown, the Knicks coach in his first year, said that night in Atlanta. “Plenty of teams have been down 1-2. I even think Oklahoma City was down 1-2 last year and they ended up winning it. I’m not saying we’re going to win it or anything like that, but the reality of it is it’s seven games and you take one game at a time.”

The Knicks have played 13 games since. The results: win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win and win. One game at a time, one win at a time, and quite possibly, one championship at a time. The Knicks are back in New York with a 2-0 lead over San Antonio in the NBA Finals, still riding the strength of a 13-game winning streak.

A streak like that has happened once before in NBA postseason history, when counting just single-season winning runs. Golden State won 15 in a row on its way to the 2017 title.

The common thread between those Warriors and these Knicks? That would be Brown. He was an assistant on that Golden State staff and went 12-0 as acting head coach during the playoffs while Steve Kerr was sidelined by back issues.

“You’ve got to have good players,” Brown said. “I’m not that smart. You’ve got to have good players that carry you.”

Brown’s playoff record, officially, is a stellar 64-42 as a head coach.

Throw those 12 games with the Warriors on his record — which, by NBA rule and precedent, doesn’t happen because Kerr was still head coach, just not present on the sideline for those games — and Brown’s playoff winning percentage would rise to .644. That would be third best in NBA history among coaches with at least 100 playoff games, behind only Phil Jackson and Kerr.

Either way, Brown now has to be considered the coaching king of the playoff winning streak.

A look inside this run by New York:

Dominant margins

— The Knicks have outscored Atlanta, Philadelphia, Cleveland and San Antonio in these 13 games by 273 points, the biggest 13-game margin in NBA playoff history. Before this stretch, the biggest 13-game playoff point-differential margin was 225, by those Warriors — the team that Brown led on an interim basis — in 2017.

— All but two of the Knicks’ wins in this streak were by double figures. The exceptions: Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against Philadelphia (a six-point win) and Game 2 of the NBA Finals against San Antonio (a one-point win). Six additional wins have come with a final margin between 10 and 16 points, and the other five were total blowouts — the Knicks winning those by 29, 30, 37, 39 and 51 points.

— The Knicks have led by 40 or more in four different games during the streak, including a 61-point lead at Atlanta in the clinching game of that East first-round series.

Rarely in trouble

— The Knicks have faced double-digit deficits in just four of the games, with two of those the first two of these NBA Finals against the Spurs. They trailed by 14 in Game 1 and by as many as 12 in Game 2.

— They also trailed Philadelphia by 12 in Game 3 of the East semifinals and Cleveland by 22 in Game 1 of the East final.

Road warriors

— New York is 8-0 on the road during this winning streak, the final margin in those games — even with a one-point game from Friday in there — averaging a staggering 21.5 points.

— The only team in Knicks history with a longer road winning streak, either in the regular season or playoffs, was the 1969-70 team that once won 12 in a row away from home. That team went on to win New York’s first NBA title.

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KNICKS, UP 2-0 IN NBA FINALS, SAY THE JOB IS FAR FROM OVER. AND THE SPURS AREN’T CONCEDING ANYTHING

The New York Knicks are up 2-0. They say they’re unfazed.

The San Antonio Spurs are down 0-2. They say they’re unfazed.

Such is the state of things in the NBA Finals, where both teams were taking a travel day on Saturday. Practices resume Sunday and Game 3 of the title series is Monday night at Madison Square Garden, where President Donald Trump will be watching alongside fans who are willing to pay nearly $10,000 for seats so far from the court that 7-foot-4 Spurs center Victor Wembanyama will look tiny.

The Knicks insist they’re not celebrating yet. The Spurs insist they’re not defeated yet.

“Every single day, we chip away and try to be the best that we can be. … Even with the series it is now, next game, mindset has to be 0-0 again,” said Knicks guard Jalen Brunson, the late-game hero in both the Game 1 and Game 2 wins that New York got in San Antonio to take an absolute stranglehold on the series. “It’s just how it has to be. You can’t be comfortable. You can’t be satisfied with anything. Just got to continue to push forward.”

That’s all they’ve done for a month and a half now.

They’ve won 13 consecutive games, the second-longest single-season playoff run in NBA history behind only a 15-game winning streak by Golden State in the 2017 postseason. They have a chance to be the first team in NBA history to make it through the last three rounds of the playoffs — the conference semifinals, conference final and NBA Finals — unbeaten.

“One of the things that we preach is being present,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “In order to be present, you can’t think about the past, you can’t think about the future. For all of us as humans, that’s hard as heck to do. I constantly, boom, flick myself in the head, tell myself, ‘Be present, be present, be present.’ I obviously mention it to the group, too. With those guys being who they are, they’ve really embraced it, and they’re really trying to live it every single moment during this run.”

They don’t get rattled, even on this stage. Counting the NBA Cup final, which isn’t recognized in standings or official league stats, the Knicks are 4-1 against the Spurs this season. The four wins by New York all have something in common: the Knicks trailed by double digits in each of those games.

— Cup final in Vegas, the Spurs led by 11 (and lost by 11).

— Regular-season game at MSG, the Spurs led by 12 (and lost by 25).

— Game 1 of the finals, the Spurs led by 14 (and lost by 10).

— Game 2 of the finals, the Spurs led by 12 (and lost by one).

“We just need to figure it out,” Wembanyama said. “We need to keep working on it.”

The only Spurs win over New York was the regular-season game at home, where they won by two after trailing by 19 and never leading by more than six.

Go figure.

“It was going to take everything to win the series anyway,” Spurs guard Stephon Castle said. “Putting ourselves in this type of predicament is going to be tough, but I don’t think it’s anything we can’t handle.”

The Knicks have an idea of what’s coming on Monday.

The Garden will be shaking to its core, since people who spent the kind of money that they’re spending to come see a basketball game likely won’t decide to sit quietly in their seats. The energy in the city will be beyond compare, with a 53-year wait for another NBA championship now just two games away and oddsmakers — who have the Knicks at -550 to win the series — basically saying it’s inevitable. And the Spurs will come out throwing whatever punches they have left to throw.

“Knowing them, there’s going to be another level,” Brunson said. “We have to be prepared and be ready to match it and play for 48 minutes. No matter what goes on in the game, we have to have each other’s back, what’s going on, who is on a run, what’s not, who is up, who is down, making sure we are playing together for 48 minutes is really important.”

If the Knicks could use a cautionary tale, they need look no further than Mikal Bridges. He was with Phoenix when the Suns took a 2-0 lead in the 2021 finals against Milwaukee. The Bucks and Giannis Antetokounmpo won that series in six games. It’s a different situation now — those two Suns wins were in Phoenix, not on the road — but it is a reminder that two wins aren’t enough.

“It’s still 0-0 as far as we’re concerned,” Knicks forward Josh Hart said. “Being up 2-0 means really nothing. This (San Antonio) team is going to come out on Monday with an unbelievable amount of energy and desperation, and we’ve got to be better.”

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