The Knicks Bought Philly And Burned The Receipts

Naturally, the takes came in hot. Dave Portnoy hopped on to argue Philly forfeited its sports-town card the moment they let the visitors run the building, and he's not exactly going out on a limb — that opinion is the consensus right now. There's an argument that the way you lose a playoff series is almost more damaging than losing it. Getting swept is bad. Getting swept while your fans cry on the local news and the other team's fans take over your home court is a generational humiliation.

Dave Portnoy

@stoolpresidente

The way the Knicks took over the Sixers building, the way they were embarrassed on their home court… I’m not sure you ever recover from that

Not everyone is just laughing at Philly, though. Mike Mutnansky has been stuck on a different question for days: how on earth did the Celtics lose to THIS team? Because that's the other shoe. If the Sixers are this cooked — if the Knicks can casually hang 30-plus on them in a closeout — then Boston's exit looks worse with every Knicks beatdown. Two fanbases, two completely different flavors of pain, same root cause.

Picks Central

@PicksCentral

.@MikeMutnansky is still angry at the Celtics and in disbelief they lost to THIS Sixers team

So how far does this Knicks team go? Nobody actually knows yet, but the vibes are off the charts. Clem already declared these the good old days, and he's right — Knicks playoff runs that feel like this don't come around often. Cherish the closeouts, cherish the road takeovers, cherish watching another fanbase publicly grieve on cable news. This is the part you tell your kids about.