The Knicks Sweep the 76ers to Reach the Eastern Conference Finals for the Second Straight Year
The Knicks finished off a four-game sweep of the 76ers Saturday night, and they didn't just win the series. They made a statement about where they stand in the East. New York is heading back to the Eastern Conference Finals for the second straight year on the strength of suffocating defense and an offense that found its highest gear at exactly the right time.
Game 1 set the tone as a total mismatch. New York's defense overwhelmed Philadelphia from the opening tip, forcing 19 turnovers and turning them into 28 points, and the Knicks shot 55 percent from the floor in a 137-98 blowout they never trailed. Jalen Brunson ran the show with 29 points and 11 assists, Karl-Anthony Towns controlled the glass with 15 rebounds, and Philadelphia looked like a team with nothing left in the tank. That's understandable, given they'd just survived a seven-game war with Boston that included comebacks in Games 5, 6, and 7. Joel Embiid managed 18 points but looked labored and disconnected from the opening possession.
Game 2 was closer on the scoreboard but never in real doubt. New York led by as many as 22 in the third quarter before Philadelphia trimmed it late, with Brunson scoring 26 and Towns adding 22 points and 11 rebounds. Every time the 76ers cut the deficit to single digits, the Knicks had an answer. That's the kind of response that only comes from a team playing with real confidence. Game 3 shifted to a rocking Wells Fargo Center, and for a quarter and a half it looked like Philadelphia might have life. They led 58-56 at the half. Then New York outscored them 38-22 in the third quarter, with Brunson orchestrating the run with surgical precision and the defense clamping down on Philly's half-court sets. By the time the third quarter ended with a 19-point Knicks lead, the fourth was a formality.
Game 4 was the exclamation point. Miles McBride, starting in place of an injured OG Anunoby, put on a shooting clinic, 25 points on 7-for-9 from three, and the Knicks hit 25 threes as a team, tying the NBA playoff record, in a 129-94 win that was the largest margin of the series. Embiid played just 26 minutes before getting pulled in the fourth, and Tyrese Maxey's 21 points couldn't generate enough easy looks against New York's switching defense. Philadelphia's season ended not with a fight but with the quiet recognition that they'd run into a buzzsaw.
McBride's emergence might be the most important development of this series for New York's ceiling going forward. He entered as a defensive specialist filling in for an injury and left with a real case as one of the best guards in these playoffs. His three-point shooting took a major step forward this season and his defensive intensity never wavered, and the Game 4 outburst was less a fluke than the payoff of a full season of growth. Whether Anunoby is healthy for the conference finals is now a real question worth watching: get him back, and New York's defense becomes even more suffocating; keep McBride starting, and the Knicks trade a bit of versatility for more shooting. Either way, having both available is the kind of luxury most contenders don't get.
For Philadelphia, the season will likely be remembered more for the first-round miracle than the second-round sweep. Coming back from 3-1 against Boston, the East's No. 2 seed, and closing it out with a road Game 7 win is the kind of moment that defines a franchise's belief for years, even in a season that ended this abruptly. What the 76ers lack, and what this series exposed again, is the depth and health to sustain a run across multiple rounds. Embiid's availability remains the franchise's eternal question mark: healthy and engaged, he's a legitimate MVP-level piece; laboring, as he clearly was against New York, the whole offense turns stagnant. The offseason is going to bring hard conversations about his contract and the makeup of the roster around him.
New York now waits on the winner of a Pistons-Cavaliers series that Detroit currently leads 2-1, and the two paths look very different. A Pistons team fueled by Cade Cunningham, arguably the best player in these Eastern playoffs, arrives with a five-game winning streak and serious momentum, even though the Knicks went 2-1 against them in the regular season; playoff Detroit has been a different animal. Cleveland, if they get there, brings Donovan Mitchell, who already has 35 career 30-point playoff games, alongside a James Harden who's been genuinely valuable when locked in, and the Cavaliers are unbeaten at home this postseason with a half-court style built to slow games down to their pace. Whichever team it is, New York's formula stays the same: elite defense, Brunson dictating the pace and the reads, Towns dominant on both ends, and enough shooting from McBride and the rest of the rotation to make teams pay for helping off shooters.
None of it works without Brunson, and this series was as much a showcase for him as it was for the team. He controlled the pace of every game, made the right read possession after possession, and had a knack for getting a bucket exactly when New York needed one and anchoring the defense when it needed a stop instead. That's the kind of contribution that doesn't always show up cleanly in a box score. He came to New York being written off in some corners as a solid-but-unspectacular signing. Following a team that's now two series wins from a championship, with a sweep of Atlanta in the first round and a sweep of Philadelphia in the second, that critique looks like ancient history. In this city, that's how you become a legend.
