Kristian Winfield: The Knicks restored the faith. Now they want to finish the job.

Kristian Winfield, New York Daily News on May 9, 2025

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NEW YORK — Karl-Anthony Towns doesn’t spend much time on social media. But if he opened Instagram or X, he’d see it — Knicks fans weeping tears of joy. A franchise once buried by dysfunction now delivering a revival. The Knicks did that.

They’ve restored belief in a city that had almost given up.

“We know we’re repping the city anywhere we at with that jersey, so we always want to make our city proud,” Towns said. “We want to make the fans proud. Give them something to cheer for. At the end of the day, most importantly, we want to make sure that the fans know that we gave everything we had that night and we had that New York mentality — win or loss. Just doing everything we can to, like I said, rep the city.”

Jalen Brunson isn’t glued to the discourse either. But the memes still find him. Some fans jokingly say “Jalen Brunson saved my life,” attaching hero status to the captain of a team that’s delivered back-to-back 50-win seasons.

Brunson sees it — and immediately lets it go.

“I see it. Whenever I see stuff like that — positive or negative — I flush it,” he said. “I can’t have a reaction to it. You can’t react to the positive stuff and think you are going to not react to negative stuff. You have to exclude everything.”

He understands the weight of what he and his teammates have done — but he’s not celebrating anything just yet. The Knicks are up 2-0, not 4-0, against the Boston Celtics, and the reigning champs still stand in their way.

“I’m just happy that I have an opportunity to play for a great organization and a great city,” Brunson said. “It’s just an opportunity I don’t want to take for granted.”

Head coach Tom Thibodeau knows Madison Square Garden will be rocking for Game 3. But emotion alone doesn’t win playoff games — execution does.

“I’ve said this many times, we have great fans and we certainly appreciate the fans, the arena and all that. But what we have to understand is what goes into winning Game 3,” Thibodeau said. “You have to earn it. It’s not given to you. There’s no guarantees because you’re up in a series. There’s no guarantees because you’re at home. You have to earn it, and you have to earn it play after play.”

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The Knicks are 5-0 on the road in the playoffs — and just 1-2 at home — entering their first second-round game at Madison Square Garden.

They went 27-14 at home and 24-17 on the road during the regular season, but their ability to win on the road has translated directly into playoff momentum.

“You go on the road, you have a close-knit group, you understand that it’s you against the crowd, you against the atmosphere. Calls are probably not going to go your way so you have to make things go your way,” Thibodeau said. “We have to have that understanding, and then the same thing, it’s the playoffs so there’s urgency to it. Whether you’re home, road, there has to be urgency in every game. We have to understand what’s at stake. You have to earn your wins.”

Protecting home court has proven harder than expected. The Knicks lost Games 2 and 5 at MSG in the opening round to Detroit. If they drop Game 3, Boston gets a chance to reclaim momentum.

“I think you have to bring it to every game. You sense it more — like on the road, you know the crowd, the atmosphere, everything,” Thibodeau said. “We can’t get lost in thinking because it’s the home crowd — we have to give them something to cheer about and we have to earn what we want. You have to deserve what you want.”

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Whether it’s cheers in the Garden or boos on the road, Brunson says his approach never changes once the ball goes up.

“Whenever you get inside those lines, you have to block out everything regardless of what is going on,” he said. “You have to focus on the little things, being out there with your teammates and covering for each other. You have to have a certain level of focus.”

Towns expects nothing short of an explosion from the MSG crowd — and he’s ready for it.

“The fans here have been amazing for us all year so you expect nothing less from them. They’ve been bringing us energy and that support that’s needed all year for us to be at this point,” he said. “So shoutouts to our fans. They really push us to new heights when they come out and support us like that.”