There's winning a playoff series, and then there's whatever the Knicks just did to the Sixers. Closeout games are supposed to be tight, sweaty, anxiety-ridden affairs. New York has apparently decided that's for other teams. They walked into Philly, blew the doors off, and left with the city's dignity in a duffel bag. Picks Central put it bluntly — another closeout, another 30-plus margin.
The numbers on the closeout, and the obvious next question: how far does this Knicks team actually go?
The wildest part wasn't even the scoreboard. It was the building. Knicks fans flooded Philadelphia, drowned out the home crowd, and turned the Sixers' own arena into a road game for the Sixers. Josh Hart twisted the knife on the way out, and Philly TV had to run actual crying-fan segments. When your local broadcast is openly admitting you got clowned in your own city, the series is already over twice.
A local Philly segment with weepy Sixers fans conceding the city got taken over.
'We're Getting Clowned' - This Philly TV Segment With Crying Sixers Fans And Knicks Fans Dominating Their City Is The Definition Of Cinema https://t.co/x7gMM26OEW
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.
Portnoy's verdict on the Sixers getting embarrassed on their own floor.
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.
Mutnansky still can't process that the Celtics went out to the team currently getting steamrolled.
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.