Josh Hart’s influence on the 2022-23 Knicks has been immediate and it has been undeniable.
It will be better if this all carries over to Feb. 24, when the Knicks begin their 22-game push to the playoffs, 13 of those games coming against teams presently in postseason position, their .512 strength-of-schedule opponents’ winning percentage the seventh-toughest in the NBA. The Hart deal in no way lets the Knicks vault into the deepest end of the pool the way the DeBusschere trade almost 55 years ago did.
But before the trade, the Knicks looked, across every second of this season, like a stoutly .500 team. No matter if they were four over .500 or five under, you looked at them every night and two numbers were impossible to shake. Now? Sixth seems plausible — and in truth, with the Nets a complete mystery right now, so does fifth . Last year’s No. 5 seed, Toronto, won 48 games.
Maybe even that’s a stretch. But if what we’ve seen against Utah, Brooklyn and Atlanta the last three games is real — and it feels real — why shouldn’t the Knicks feel they can get to 48? They are playing, and looking, like a different team now. But whole. And when’s the last time you could say that?
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