Ewing, Camby and Thomas provided the inside presence to balance the floor, while Sprewell provided the energy, explosiveness and hustle to give the team a lights-out slashing scorer off the bench.Īnd highlights were plenty, like this game in Philadelphia against the Allen Iverson-led 76ers on February 19-an absolute slugfest that the Knicks took 78-67. On offense, when the ball was moving, a beautiful inside-outside game emerged with guards Houston and Charlie Ward and forwards Larry Johnson and Dennis Scott all able to stretch the floor. The Knicks had found something in the weeks prior to this matchup: Through tight man-to-man and a crowd-the-paint style of defense, the team held opponents to a 40.3 percent shooting rate (second in the NBA). I captured some of these in a column I did on the Miami Heat last week: It was an exciting and heated rivalry I grew up watching with a ton of memories to match. Incidentally, this would be the third year in a row that the Knicks and Heat were to face off during the playoffs, both having each won a series in their prior matchups. With a potential losing season staring them in the face, the team ground out a 6-4 record over its final 10 games to book a place in the first round of the playoffs against the conference rival Miami Heat. Through constant iterating and physical defense, the Jeff Van Gundy-led Knicks went through a see-saw season of multiple winning and losing streaks to finish the campaign with a 27-23 record, barely enough to earn them the eighth seed in the playoffs. In the early absences of Ewing and Sprewell-and with the likes of veteran forwards Larry Johnson, Kurt Thomas and guard Allan Houston needing to step up-the team just wasn’t able to string along much consistency in a truncated season already short on rhythm. There was also the injury to Sprewell (heel) in just his second game with the Knicks that had him miss a significant amount of time. With both his knees heavily taped up, he was a constant injury risk, missing a ton of games due to a broken wrist and strained Achilles tendon among other nagging issues. The unquestionable leader of the team for much of the previous decade, center Patrick Ewing was beginning to feel the mileage of having led the team through so many deep playoff runs. In return, they acquired a much younger tandem: defensive big man Marcus Camby and controversial swingman Latrell Sprewell. Prior to the beginning of the season, they had done the unthinkable, trading away two players that were so deeply enmeshed in the team’s DNA: forward Charles Oakley (Toronto Raptors) and guard John Starks (Golden State Warriors). New York had six consecutive winning seasons going back to 1991-92, including a trip to the NBA finals in 1994 where it lost to the center Hakeem Olajuwon-led Houston Rockets in 7 games.īut the 98-99 Knicks were going through a transition from that previous era and looking to move in a new direction. It’s not that the Knicks were bad coming into the season. Yet, there was something about the team that competed during the lock-out shortened 1998-99 season that helped me crystallize the qualities I most appreciate in teams and players across a number of sports: hard work, toughness, that never-giving-up-and-overcoming-the-odds-despite-being-the-underdogs attitude. That’s rather ironic, given the sheer amount of time I have spent over the last two decades watching Knicks games. When I look back at the teams that shaped my view of the NBA as a kid growing up in the 90s, the New York Knicks don’t necessarily feature at the top of the list. Eason remains behind Jabari Smith on the depth chart, but the 21-year-old could emerge as a core piece of the second unit next season.The NBA I Grew Up Watching: 1998-99 New York Knicks The rookie forward was a consistent force on the glass to end the season, recording at least six boards in each of the last eight games and averaging 8.9 points, 7.8 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.4 steals in 26.6 minutes off the bench during that stretch. ![]() ![]() The 24-year-old averaged 20.0 points, 6.1 assists, 2.5 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game in 28 appearances for the Rockets' G League affiliate. Outside of that three-week stretch where he played four games, Hudgins was featured in only one other game throughout the season. Hudgins served as a depth piece for Houston in February with Kevin Porter and Jalen Green in and out of the lineup. The LSU product impressed in the G League this season, averaging 24.4 points and 9.8 rebounds, but it will be difficult for him to carve out a significant role with the Rockets, who have a solid young frontcourt duo in Alperen Sengun and Jabari Smith. Days was a February depth piece with a few starters and rotation pieces banged up, but he wasn't able to make his way into the rotation at any other point during the 2022-23 campaign.
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