Game 2
107–106Hawks by oneChapter 10
The Playoff Staircase
Down 2–1 to Atlanta. Then fifteen wins in sixteen games and an Eastern Conference title.
Act VI · First round
The season almost breaks
Two one-point losses. Bridges: zero points in twenty-one minutes. Atlanta up 2–1, and the Bridges trade back on trial.
Game 3
109–108Hawks by oneGame 6
140–8983–36 at halftime, a playoff recordBrown moved Towns to the elbows, and the spacing problems that haunted the Atlanta losses disappeared. New York won fifteen of its last sixteen games and never lost another one in the East.
Game 6 · Closeout140–89
Fifteen of sixteen
The playoff staircase
Atlanta nearly ended it. Philadelphia and Cleveland never won a game. San Antonio was the only series that stayed close, and the only one that ended the season.
Atlanta
4–2+105
Down 1–2, then wins by 16, 29, and 51.
Philadelphia
4–0+89
Four straight, the first sweep of the run.
Cleveland
4–0+77
A 22-point Game 1 comeback opened another sweep.
San Antonio
4–1+12
The tightest margin, and the only one that ended the season.
May 19 · The next comeback
Cleveland led by twenty-two and lost. New York's second unit changed the pressure, Towns made the late three, and the sweep started there.
The adjacent full-game highlights are published by the NBA. See every game in the Season Tape.
Four meetings · one opponent
They kept finding San Antonio
They met in the Cup final, again on New Year's Eve, again in March. By the time the Finals bracket resolved, the fourth meeting felt scheduled.
- 124–113
December · Las Vegas
The Knicks erased an eleven-point Cup-final deficit and closed 43–21.
- 132–134
New Year's Eve · San Antonio
The rematch became the first loss of the winter slide.
- 114–89
March · The response
The third meeting was a 25-point Knicks win.
- 4–1
June · The Finals
The fourth meeting went five games and decided the title.
New York and San Antonio met in the 1999 Finals. Twenty-seven years later, they met again.