I’m Coming Home

(Editor’s note: Ex-Knickerblogger and kickass journalist Sydney Bauer has blessed us with another guest post. Take it away, Sydney.)

In early 2020 I was working as a communications specialist at a firm in Atlanta, when COVID hit. My client was a giant telecom company and unlike other clients whose work ground to a halt with the pandemic, people needed their Internet and phones to work no matter what disease was raging around them. 

So we had to produce daily internal reports about how Covid was progressing and what it meant for vendors and technicians. We learned quite quickly there’s only so many ways you can say “this situation remains unprecedented.” I learned very quickly there’s only so many ways to say this. 

In a matter of hours, Game 3 of the NBA Finals will tipoff and by all that is holy and good, the Knicks boast a 2-0 series lead. This, too, is unprecedented. In their prior eight Finals appearances, they’ve blown a couple of deciding games, and, back when the lineup was packed with out-of-work plumbers, made three straight trips to the big dance. This is a franchise used to taste a lot of success, but this? This is all new. 

And now they’re heading back home, to a place where they were 30-10 in the regular season and 6-1 in the playoffs. The Knicks are playing with house money in the biggest stage they’ve been on in over a quarter of a century. 

I have no idea how else to say it: This degree of dominance, of fucking greatness is so unfamiliar, so unfathomable, that to be frank, I’m a little terrified of it going our way. 

***

In February 2011 the Knicks prepared a homecoming montage for Carmelo Anthony—aftermortgaging every last asset in their coffers. The song “Coming Home,” by Diddy pumped up the introductions. The prodigal son, born in New York and a collegiate legend upstate, was back in the Mecca of basketball where he belonged. The electricity didn’t fade that night as Melo took over the fourth quarter to win a close game against a less than mediocre Bucks squad. ] 

Acquiring Melo did not in fact supercharge ta deep playoff run. It would not be until 2012 when they won a playoff game with him on the team. In total from 2011 to 2017 the Knicks would win one total playoff series, a first round matchup against a the dregs of the late 2000s Ubuntu Celtics juggernaut. The Knicks went up 3-0 in that series, showed up to Game 4 in all black for a “funeral” and then proceeded to sleepwalk through the next two games, before finally wrapping it up in six. Pretty indicative of the whole early 2010s Knicks’ vibe, if you ask me. 

Homecomings were sort of A Thing back then. Kurt Thomas, Quentin Richardson, Marcus Camby, freaking Rasheed Wallace, even, donned the blue and orange for a bit. The phrase Once a Knick, Always a Knick would appear everywhere. [Editor’s note: The full acronym is “OAKAAKUYO” (Unless You’re Oakley)] But it was not to be. There would be no parade down the Canyon of Heroes for our now-wizened uh heroes. 

Then came one of the most disastrous reunions this franchise has ever seen: hiring Phil Jackson to run basketball operations. A useful bench cog in the 1973 championship team and one of the greatest coaches of all time with zero front office experience and, it seems, very little interest in learning on the job.. Three terrible-to-middling seasons later, and they were right back in a very familiar place:rock bottom for the Knicks. Charles Oakley getting bum-rushed out of MSG by Dolan’s goons was a fitting capper to this era.

Much has been said about the reunion of the Knicks and Tom Thibodeau, who brought relevancy back to this franchise. And no doubt he helped lay the foundation for this spectacular run. And it was in this time the Knicks aggressively courted NYC area legends Jalen Brunson and Karl Anthony Towns (jersey4lyfe) and hired former player Rick Brunson as coach (surely just coincidence not tampering). The front office has rebuilt bridges with former players and many Knicks legends from even controversial eras (what up STEPHON MARBURY) proudly sit cheering on the orange and blue. They say you can’t come home again, but maybe you never actually leave Madison Square Garden. 

***

I grew up in a very small town in New Jersey, one that’s home to about 10,000 people. I knew my  neighbors. Hell, everyone knew most people in town. In my junior year of college, my parents moved to a different part of the state, so by the time I came back to Jersey for Thanksgiving my senior year I had to drive about 50 minutes north to hang out with my friends, many of whom I’m still close with to this day, by the way. 

I remember driving up to hang out at this defunct townie bar called the Colorado Cafe. It had a mechanical bull and $3 draft beer. Fantastic place. Real trashy. I had just turned 21 four months prior and was so excited to see old friends I hadn’t seen in a year. But by the time I trekked up and made it, had my obligatory drinks and caught up, I realized I had to start drinking water and slowly end my night early since I had to go back to where my parents now lived. The drive home at 1 am was incredibly grim and not worth the effort for the casual, regular hang out I had. 

Sometimes I worry these next two games will be like that night. The magic will run out and home will not be the safest, most fun place you can imagine. I vividly remember the 2022 Eastern Conference finals where the Rangers luck ran out after going up 2-0 on Tampa. Or the 2009 first round series against the Capitals where we were up 3-1 and choked away the upset. Or the 2015 Mets World Series where it seemed like the team of destiny vanished in a puff of smoke in some coin flip games. 

This kind of catastrophizing will not change anything, a sentence I’m sure my therapist will be proud of me for saying. Nothing I do or say will change what happens on the court. It’s up to those Knickerbockers to execute. 

After a putrid first half in Game 2, Wembanyama came alive to almost steal the game for the Spurs in their own arena. Usually a home team rallying desperately to stay in a series at home signifies a death spiral for a playoff matchup. But the biggest players elevate their game at Madison Square Garden. Always have, always will. Like the Boomers said, the whole world is watching..  

I lived in Atlanta from 2009 to 2024. The city never truly felt fully like a home, despite making as much a home there as I could. I had a child there. I owned a house there. I knew the hidden gems and even enjoyed the overcrowded popular places. I never once pretended to be anything other than a transplant, but I sure as hell gelled with the locals better because I knew my way around and didn’t act like I owned the place. Watching the Knicks get their butts handed to them by the Hawks in 2021 felt offensive. It felt even worse watching them make their second Conference Finals and for the first time actually in a Conference Finals game. The class clown isn’t supposed to win prom king. 

Throughout these playoffs, a parade of high profile former Knicks have been gathered to watch this run. They are often seen right at or just behind courtside, lending their enthusiasm to this magical team. Guys like Stephon Marbury and Patrick Ewing have been flashing ear-to-ear grins, despite being run out of town—and often smeared by management on the way out.  clear that the new regime wants to show that it values all eras of Knicks basketball, even the ones that did not produce anything even vaguely resembling glory. 

Jeremy Lin will even make his return to the Garden as a spectator for Game 3. A Knicks GM literally tried to hide for 48 hours to avoid dealing with an offer sheet for Lin because it mildly inconvenienced the team’s cap situation .Even he’s welcome back! Except Charles Oakley. He won’t be there. He says he’s not going to games anymore despite being welcomed back. Just another reminder that James Dolan may start to forgive but he does not forget. No matter how wonderful the Knicks are, there’s always a turd in the punchbowl. That’s the true Knick way.

Being back in New Jersey for the past three postseasons of Knicks basketball has been thrilling. There is a palpable energy, even where I am, in the hinterlands closer to the Delaware River than Madison Square Garden. People are thrilled to be openly cheering for the Knicks—a truly populist, class-shattering endeavor. FGlitzycelebs locking arms with those struggling from paycheck to paycheck.. People pass each other on the street and, instead of a polite nod, they shout Knicks in four. 

Gone is the belief that Clyde Fraizer would remain the sole avatar for New York hoops excellence—an effortless cool that fans could hang their hats on, even if actual success seemed light years away

It’s here now. Just ask Frazier himself. I don’t know if it’s fair to say that the Knicks have been the better team these two games, but more so that the Spurs have not lived up to the hype of a 62 win team that many in the media deemed were the favorite going into this series. Both teams will be making adjustments for tonight’s contest but you don’t win 13 straight playoff games without being ahead of your opponents. Fans may have spent an entire regular season bemoaning the flaws of this roster. Guys disappeared for long stretches. They got hurt. They did not fit together. Yet, for the past two months they’ve found a way to not just survive and advance, but thrive and dominate.

What these Knicks are doing is genuinely unprecedented. I don’t know how else to put it. I can’t wait for the tipoff. I’m scared to death. Time to bring it home. Because your home is a state of mind. For so many of us, we’ve always been here, waiting.