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Josh Hart and the New York Knicks are currently in the midst of what figures to be a highly important offseason as for the future direction of the franchise following the team's seven game series loss to the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference semifinals. Hart and his teammates did just about everything they could in the series vs the Pacers, but ultimately, the Knicks' unbelievable amount of injuries caught up to them in the Game 7 defeat at Madison Square Garden.
The Pacers would go on to play the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, and although they were arguably more competitive within each game than each of Boston's first two playoff opponents, the Pacers were not able to register a single win en route to the sweep, sending them to Cancun to join the Knicks.
Recently, Hart and his teammate, Knicks star Jalen Brunson, recalled a conversation they've had with Pacers star point guard Tyrese Haliburton since that series ended on the Roommates Show podcast, via Fanatics Sportsbook.
“I think I said something like, ‘d***, y'all couldn't get one win?'” revealed Hart, via ClutchPoints on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter. “Y'all beat us Game 7, whatever, y'all mad hype, y'all couldn't get one win? After three leads in the fourth? Obviously, if we moved on, (Brunson) wouldn't have been playing, I would have tried to play. I don't know how I would have been. D***, we could have done that. We would have not had JB, I don't know if I might have played a couple of games, like, at least get one.”
Indeed, there's an argument to be made that the Pacers really should have been up 3-1 in their series vs the Celtics by the time Game 4 ended. Instead, they found a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory multiple times and the series ended in the minimum number of games.
Where do the Knicks go from here?
Knicks fans will likely look back at the 2023-24 season and think, “What if?” The team had to deal with a truly remarkable amount of injuries, including missing Julius Randle for the second half of the season and playoffs, Bojan Bogdanovic for a large portion of the playoffs, Mitchell Robinson for a large stretch of the playoffs, OG Anunoby for several games, as well as injuries to Hart and Brunson that kept them nowhere near 100 percent.
Still, even if the Knicks were healthy, it's likely that they wouldn't have had enough to actually defeat the Celtics, even if they would have probably been a lot more competitive than Indiana was. This begs the question of whether the Knicks should try to make a free agent or trade splash this offseason, especially considering that none of their core players will be below the age of 27 next year.
In any case, the frustrating way it ended shouldn't take away from what was overall a very successful season for the Knicks that more than likely would have resulted in a conference finals berth if not for injuries.
