It was the last Sunday in April and the Knicks were about to play game 4 of their first round playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers. Traffic was light on the 218 mile drive to the Wells Fargo Center. After leaving Montauk around 7am I was north of Philly in the Fishtown neighborhood heading south on 95 at 10:20am. I had made great time. When I pulled into media parking I had more than two hours before the 1pm start time.
Sixers employees were filing in and some fans were tailgating. I filled my empty stomach in the press catering room. It had a table full of Brioche French toast with hot banana syrup in a cast iron pot and thick slices of maple glazed bacon and scrambled eggs in two heated catering trays. There were Bowls full of fresh blackberries, blueberries and strawberries for the French toast. They had a cold sandwich station with different bread, cold cuts and fixings. They also had oatmeal, coffee, tea and a soda machine. With an hour before tip it was time to check out the team’s warming up. As I headed towards the court I walked past David Aldridge, a writer for The Athletic, talking with Knicks Coach Tom Thibodeau. Knicks Isaiah Hartenstein and Alec Burks were finishing up their warmup, but I was lucky enough to watch Josh Hart go through his pregame warmup. He systematically took shots one handed close to the basket from different positions eventually moving further away and ending with 3 point shots. It was 12:20pm. I enjoyed meeting Monica McNutt from ESPN and MSG Network during Josh’s warmup. Josh Hart signed a bunch of stuff for fans hanging over the railing before heading into the locker room.
The Knicks were down 10 after the first quarter 27-17. With 5:30 to go in the first half Jalen Brunson hit a beautiful turnaround jumper to break a 32-32 tie. Earlier in the second quarter chants of MVP from the loud and substantial Knicks fans were met by many boos when Brunson shot free throws. Brunson was on his way to making Knicks history. With 18 seconds to go in the half he scored the last basket of the half. The Knicks trailed by two 49-47 at halftime. Brunson continued his assault in the 3rd quarter. With 6:50 to go in the third and the Knicks down 61-51 Brunson faked Half Hollows Hills West and Long Island Lutheran’s Tobias Harris into the air before scoring and being fouled by Harris to make it 61-53. Two minutes later Brunson beat Harris again to score going left off the glass to make it 63-60. With 1:33 left in the third Brunson hit a three and tied it with another bucket 76-76 with 5 seconds to go in the third. Brunson continued his attack putting the Knicks up 84-81 with 9 minutes to go in the game with a tough fall away from 7 footer Joel Embiid. Brunson drove the lane and scored against three Sixers to set a personal playoff high of 42 points and put the Knicks up 90-87 with 5:20 to go. With 55 seconds left Jalen put the Knicks up 95-89 scoring his 45th point on a floater in the lane. Brunson ended the game scoring the last point on a free throw with 5 seconds left setting a franchise playoff record with 47 points. He beat Bernard King’s 46 points scored in April 1984. After his historic performance Jalen answered the final press conference question about how it felt to hear Knicks fans in Philadelphia chanting “MVP… MVP?” saying, “It means that they’re for real…no matter where we are they’re gonna be there…so I’m appreciative…I’m thankful…a lot of these situations wouldn’t be done without them.”
After losing game five 112-106 in overtime at MSG in NYC on April 30th, the Knicks were playing again in Philadelphia Thursday May 2nd. The NBA set tipoff for 9pm to take advantage of viewership on both East and West coasts. Three billionaire owners of the Sixers had purchased and distributed more than 2,000 tickets to local do-gooders for Game 6. In warmups Donte DiVincenzo was drilling one 3 pointer after another in front of me. He came out draining two 3’s early. He ended up playing all 48 minutes of game six. He ended up with a playoff career high 23 points. Shooting 5 for 9 from 3 point land. He also handed out 7 assists. The Knicks jumped out to a 14 point first quarter lead 36-22. Then the Sixers flipped the script winning the second quarter 32-15 to lead 54-51 at halftime. The Knicks won the 3rd quarter 32-29 to tie it 83-83 after 3 quarters. With 35 seconds to go and the score tied 111-111 the Knicks had the ball. DiVincenzo passed it to Brunson who passed it to Hart who passed it back to Brunson who drove to the left corner and threw it back to Hart at the top right of the 3 point line. Hart drained the 3 with 24.4 seconds to play. The Knicks turned the 114-111 lead into a game six 118-115 series win. With DiVincenzo, Hart & Brunson in front of me at the post game press conference I said, “Villanova in the House” then Brunson said, “Say it again” I obliged. Then Jalen said “one more time.” And I replied “Villanova in the HOUSE!” I asked, “how’s it feel being back in Philly taking this place over?” Josh Hart answered, “it felt great…we knew it was going to be a tough environment…a little tougher than last game because there were 2500 seats taken up…we knew it was going to be a battle…we knew it was gonna be a grind…give them credit we knew it was gonna be a tough series…a tough place to play…but a place we’re all comfortable with” The Knicks are heading to Indianapolis to play the Pacers in game 6 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals with a 3-2 lead as I send my playoff Journal in for publishing. Hopefully they’re playing in the Eastern Conference Finals when you read this. https://x.com/sny_knicks/status/1786252209845321872
After covering the NBA playoffs, I shifted to the NCAA Division 1 lacrosse tournament. On May 11th I drove 341 miles to SECU Stadium at the University of Maryland in College Park, MD for a 7:30pm start of the Maryland Princeton first round playoff game. Maryland dominated Princeton. They lead 4-1 in the rain after the first quarter. The Terps exploded with 7 second quarter goals to lead 11-3 at halftime. Princeton managed to outscore MD 3-1 in the third quarter, but Maryland won the fourth quarter 4-2 for a 16-8 win. Eric Spanos led the Terps with 4 goals. Jack Koras and Eric Malever had 3 goals each. Daniel Kelly and Daniel Maltz had two goals each. Owen Murphy and Ryan Siracusa added a goal each to round out Maryland’s scoring. Nate Kabiri had 3 goals for Princeton. Colin Burns, Coulter Mackesy, Lucas Stanat, Tucker Wade and Marquez White each added a goal to round out the Tigers scoring.
The next day I was at Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood Field for a first round game between the Hopkins Blue Jays and the Lehigh Mountain Hawks. It was the 36th time the two had played each other. Hopkins led the series 24-11 which dates back to 1889. The last time the two teams played was 1925 when Hopkins won 3-2. The game was slated to start at noon but was delayed twice by weather delays. The noon start became 12:48pm after the first delay. The teams played for just over 16 minutes before the second weather delay in the second quarter with the score tied 2-2. Andrew Kelly’s goal got Lehigh on the board first. Matt Collison’s goal tied it 1-1. Quinn Armstrong scored to put Lehigh up 2-1 before Collison tied it 2-2 before the second weather delay. Hopkins got goals from Jacob Angelus and Casey McDermott from Rochester to lead 4-2 with 11:44 to go in the half. Lehigh’s Armstrong got his 2nd goal to make it 4-3. Garrett Degnon scored for Hopkins with 9:21 left in the half to make it 5-3 Hopkins. Andrew Kelly got his 2nd goal for Lehigh to close the half with Hopkins up 5-4. The second half started with Grant Rodny getting Lehigh even 5-5 with a goal 44 seconds into the third quarter. Hopkins reeled off 3 straight goals to make it 8-5 with 7:13 left in the third. Collison started the run with his 3rd goal followed by Jonathan Peshko getting his first goal and Angelus getting his third goal. With 5:11 to go in the third it was time for a Lehigh run. They scored four straight goals between the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth to make the score 9-8 with 10:48 left. Aidan Decker, Scott Cole, Armstrong (his 3rd) and Kelly (his 2nd) got the goals for Lehigh. Degnon got his second goal for Hopkins followed by Cole getting his second Lehigh goal and the score was 10-9 Lehigh up with 6:41 left. Hopkins turned the lights out for Lehigh at this point with four straight goals highlighted by defenseman Scott Smith scoring with a shot from 55 yards away from his end of field with 3:11 to go after Lehigh’s goalie Nick Pecora from Congers, NY left his net open to help his team do a 10 man ride. The other Hopkins goals were from Peshko(his 2nd), Collison(his 4th) and Dylan Bauer’s first goal. Hopkins won the weather delayed shootout 13-10. They move on to the NCAA quarterfinals at Towson, MD on Sunday May 19th.
I’ll be covering the #1 seed Notre Dame vs. #8 Georgetown and #2 Duke vs. #7 Maryland at Hofstra Saturday May 18th. When this Journal comes out we will know who the Final Four teams are for the semifinals at Lincoln Financial Field in where else but Philadelphia on May 25th.
