Thirty-nine wins may not be enough to make the NBA playoffs this season in the Eastern Conference.
That’s the number of victories the Pistons had last season when they were the No. 8 seed, and in past years you wouldn’t even need that many to make it the postseason from the East. And if that was the number this year, the Knicks would have a great chance of making it past the regular season. But though the Knicks have shown flashes of improvement over the past month, the teams they are competing with have done more than that.
If the Bulls were still playing the way they were at the start of the season, the Knicks would be one game out of the playoffs instead of four. Chicago lost 11 of 13 earlier this season, and one of those defeats was at home against the Nets, still New Jersey’s only win away from Izod Center.
But the Bulls are not the same team right now, reeling off four straight wins over Western Conference teams all above .500. The Bulls went into Phoenix, Houston, San Antonio and Oklahoma City and came out with four upsets. What would the Knicks be in those games, 1-3 at best? That pushed Chicago to within one game of the No. 5 seed, putting some space between the No. 9 Bucks and 10th-seeded Knicks.
Derrick Rose is returning to the form he displayed during the postseason last year when the Bulls pushed the Celtics to seven games in the first round. If he maintains that level, the Knicks will not catch the Bulls.
Then there’s the Bobcats, who are tied with the Bulls for the seventh seed. Charlotte is another team that stumbled out of the blocks at 3-9. They still struggle mightily on the road at 4-17, but the addition of Stephen Jackson is the reason this is a dangerous team that likely will make the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. Jackson and Gerald Wallace are a formidable scoring duo.
The Bobcats had a big overtime win in Phoenix on Tuesday night to break a three-game slide and get them back to .500 at 22-22. This one burns a little more for Knicks fans with their former coach Larry Brown, who had one awful season in New York, leading the Bobcats.
The Heat are in the sixth spot at 23-22 and, simply put, it’s foolish to think the Knicks will be passing a Dwyane Wade-led team in the standings. It’s a shame for Knicks fans that Wade seems content in Miami because that franchise has failed to put enough talent around him in recent years. The Heat did win the NBA championship four years ago, which may in part be why Wade feels loyalty, but they have not gotten out of the first round in the three years since. (And the refs totally screwed the Mavericks in that Finals.)
The Raptors, who the Knicks play host to tonight, have risen to the fifth seed at 24-22. Toronto started the year 11-17, but won seven of eight games to reach .500 and have been decent since.
They have a solid front court with Chris Bosh, Andrea Bargnani and Hedo Turkoglu, even though the latter has mostly been a disappointment after signing a five-year, $60 million deal this offseason. Perhaps most disturbing is the way Toronto bullied the Knicks the previous time they came to the Garden, leading by as many as 28 points in a not-as-close-as-the-score-indicates 112-104 win on Jan. 15.
The Knicks have a chance to avenge that loss tonight when they continue a streak of six winnable games that started with a 132-105 rout of the Timberwolves on Tuesday night. After the Raptors, the Knicks go on the road to Washington and Minnesota before heading home for another game with the Wizards and one with the Bucks.
Mike D’Antoni declared that the playoffs are now for the Knicks, and he’s right because of how well their competition is playing. The Raptors, Bobcats and Bulls were able to pull themselves out of early-season holes. The Knicks started out worse than any of them at 1-9, but if they have designs on making the playoffs, they have to get back to .500 — because 39 wins won’t be good enough this season.
