The playoff box-score confirmation
New York have booked their place in the NBA Finals. The scoreboard shows a clean sweep over the Cleveland Cavaliers. The series ended 4-0. New York have copied the exact pattern from the conference semifinals. Their clash with Philadelphia finished with the same cold, hard numbers. The opening game against Cleveland was a touch closer on the stat sheet. After that, though, the rest of the series was one-way traffic. Josh Hart talks about slowly building pro habits. This group always puts the collective first. Individual numbers take a back seat to the bigger picture, and everyone knows it.
The history behind perfect runs
Back-to-back sweeps like this are rare. NBA records show only seven such cases. New York are now part of that tiny club. The data points to the Golden State Warriors in 2017. The Los Angeles Lakers hold the all-time mark with three similar runs. None of that means a ring is guaranteed, of course. The history books say teams in this spot have won four times and lost twice. The New Jersey Nets fell in the 2003 Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. The 1989 Detroit side, after three straight perfect series, also came up short.
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Waiting on the next opponent and the numbers game
New York’s front office is now watching the Western Conference. Oklahoma City Thunder are facing the San Antonio Spurs. The series is tied at 2-2. The club is preparing for the last hurdle of the season. It could set a new standard for the franchise. No Eastern Conference team has ever won the title after back-to-back sweeps. The record books show the Chicago Bulls never pulled it off either. Boston Celtics do not have a single example of this, despite 11 titles between 1957 and 1969. This New York group now has a statistical shot at something nobody there has done before.
Photo by Gregory Shamus / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP
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