The New York Knicks made it through In-Season Tournament group play as the East wildcard team, and their reward is a trip to Milwaukee to face the Bucks. Milwaukee is favored to advance to the semifinals, but don't believe for a second there's no chance New York can make it to Vegas.
The In-Season Tournament isn't the playoffs, but more so a regular-season version of the playoffs. Remember what happened the last time the Knicks were counted out in the postseason? You should because it happened only eight months ago. New York knocked off Donovan Mitchell and Cleveland in five games.
The Knicks aren't a team that should be counted out, even if they're facing Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard.
3 keys to Knicks advancing to In-Season Tournament semifinals
Bench minutes
Between Josh Hart, Immanuel Quickley, Donte DiVincenzo, and Isaiah Hartenstein, the Knicks have one of the deepest benches in the league. The lineup of Quickley-DiVincenzo-Barrett-Hart-Hartenstein has spent 111 minutes on the court together this season and has posted a 111.1 offensive rating and 8.2 net rating.
The more offensive firepower that New York has, the better. Quickley can take a game over, DiVincenzo can get hot on any given night, and Hart has looked way more comfortable on the offensive end in the last week.
Hartenstein has scored in double-digits only two times this season, but his impact comes on the boards and in the hustle plays that don't show up on the stat sheet.
Any one of the above players are capable of being New York's X-factor in Milwaukee, especially based on how they've been playing as of late.