Knicks’ incredible run eerily reminiscent of 1968-69 team

What’s best to see is the faces of the kids, and the teens, and the fans in their early 20s for whom this is all so new, so fresh, so unexpected. If you are under the age of 25 or so, and you happened to grow up a fan of professional basketball in New York, all you have known if you have followed the Knicks is despair, with the occasional profound disappointment sprinkled in. 

If you haven’t seen what we’ve seen across the first five weeks of the New Year, where the Knicks not only seem to win every time they play — 15-2 since Jan. 1, heading into Saturday night’s Garden tussle with the Lakers — but they’ve adopted the old slogan that John Calipari borrowed from the UMass swimming coach before trademarking it for his basketball teams there. 

They refuse to lose. 

For Knicks fans of other demographics, there is a faint hint of recognition. Maybe the apex of the ’90s Knicks was the 15-game winning streak in 1994, an undefeated March that extended into April and helped launch them to the Finals. For those of an even greater vintage, there is the 18-game winning streak in the late fall of 1969 that set an NBA record and served as its own propulsion to the fabled 1970 champs. 

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But the streak that feels most similar to this one actually predates that last one by a year, and seems especially relevant to what the Knicks have done the past few weeks. The Knicks won back-to-back games on Dec. 17, 1968, against the Warriors and at Boston Dec. 18. The next day, they acquired Dave DeBusschere from Detroit for Walt Bellamy and Butch Komives. 

That first game with DeBusschere in tow, the Knicks obliterated the Pistons, 135-87. They won the next game. And the next. In a now-extinct back-to-back-to-back, they won all three. The Bulls ended that 10-game winning streak by a point, 102-101 — “We forgot that we were allowed to lose,” Clyde Frazier said that night, Jan. 7. 

Then they won the next night in Milwaukee, and won the next five after that. By the time they lost to the Lakers at the Garden on Feb. 18, 1969, the record with DeBusschere on the team was 26-4. And the first generation of Knicks fans was officially born. 

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A lot of Knicks fans have been reluctant to ever draw comparisons between contemporary teams and those of that sainted group who founded whatever glories the Knicks have assembled back in those wonderful years of 1968-73. But even the ones who most jealously safeguard that legacy have come to concede that the comparison between the Knicks’ importing of DeBusschere in ’68 and their addition of in 2024 has gotten downright eerie. 

And even if you can nit-pick the basketball particulars, the general sense of a city falling hard for a team — and of a younger generation of fan embracing their first taste of first-hand excellence — has become indisputable. DeBusschere’s first home game, the Knicks drew a modest 13,998 on a holiday-season Saturday night. 

By the time that 30-game surge was over, the number “19,500” — a sellout in those years — had become a regular part of the New York numerical lexicon. 

The Knicks won easy games and the won hard games. On Feb. 1 they clobbered the defending (and future) champion Celtics, 109-82, in front of an SRO crowd behind Clyde’s 22 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists. More impressively, the very next day the Knicks went into Boston Garden and beat them again, 95-94. 

That game vaulted the Knicks into first place and guaranteed them a season series victory over the Celtics for the first time in 14 years. 

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Of course, here is the part where it’s necessary to mention that season did not have a happy ending for the Knicks, the Celtics upsetting them in the conference finals en route to delivering Bill Russell his 11th and final championship (and second straight as a player-coach). That dream was deferred a year. 

Logic tells you a similar script awaits this spring — with the same team likely prevailing — but that’s really beside the point. At this time — like that time — the games are the thing. The buzz is the thing. The way this all feels all over the city, that’s the thing.

Vac’s Whacks

Presented without comment: Punxsutawney Phil and his ancestors have an accuracy rate of 39 percent going back to 1887. Robert Saleh has a winning percentage with the Jets of 35 percent. 

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After the “meh” new song we got from the Beatles last year, I admit I had some trepidation about Billy Joel offering up his first pop song in more than 30 years. I needn’t have worried. “Turn the Lights Back On” is a worthy addition to what was already one of the best musical catalogues ever. 

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Godspeed, Carl Weathers — former Raiders linebacker, former putting guru for “Happy Gilmore” and forever Apollo Creed. 

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It was 25 years ago that a 4-year-old wearing his dad’s No. 23 jersey first walked into the Mets clubhouse. “I think he missed the first one that [Robin] Ventura hit and caught everything else,” one of the kid’s fellow fly-shaggers, Mike Hampton, says of young Patrick Mahomes. “I am not telling you I knew this young man was going to be an NFL MVP, but I knew he was going to be something special.”

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Whack Back at Vac

Greg Heimbuch: Vac, in your article about Chiefs Fatigue, you forgot to mention their ever-present, always-annoying backup QB, Jake from State Farm. 

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Vac: Do you think the Chiefs vote Jake from State Farm a half- or a full-share of the playoff money?

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Paul Sciortino: Refreshing that Kevin Durant says, “I’m just another player,” regarding his reluctance to have a tribute video. A quality man. Tiring that today’s PR departments feel a need to hype everything up. 

Vac: I look at it this way: If you have to think for more than 10 seconds if someone merits a tribute video … don’t have the tribute video. 

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@rprez2012: Mike, did you ever think you would see the day that the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers would be two of the best run organizations in sports period in 2024 and James Dolan would still be the owner of both? 

@MikeVacc: I’ve lived long enough to see George Steinbrenner both openly cursed and openly mourned at Yankee Stadium. Sports can be funny like that. 

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Bill Findlay: You asked, “When’s the last time you rushed home to see a Knicks game?” I was in eighth grade when the Knicks won their first title. If they were on TV the same night as a school dance, we skipped the dance. Think about that: 13-14-year-old boys passing up slow dances with the prettiest girls so we could watch Walt, Dick, Dave, Bill and The Captain do their thing. 

Vac: And there you go!