Knicks sweep Sixers, advance to Eastern Finals

They took over their building, their city and honestly their whole team. The New York Knicks didn’t just sweep the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday – they humiliated them. A 144-114 blowout at the Xfinity Mobile Arena completed one of the more one-sided playoff series you’ll see in recent memory, and the Knicks are now headed to the Eastern Conference Finals for the second consecutive year. It’s the first best-of-seven series sweep for the franchise since the 1999 East semis against Atlanta.

The tone was set almost immediately. The Sixers had the first basket, but the Knicks responded with a 20-4 run and were up 20 before the first quarter was even over. That’s when Miles McBride decided to put on a show. Deuce hit four consecutive threes for a fast 20-6 lead, becoming the first Knick since play-by-play tracking began in 1997 to hit four threes in the first quarter of a playoff game. The Sixers fans who were still in the building at that point were already watching a road team celebration. Because the Knicks had basically brought half of New York to Philadelphia with them.

The Knicks hit 11 three-pointers in the first quarter alone, tying the NBA record for most makes in a quarter. It was relentless. And it didn’t stop there. They totaled 18 threes in the first half, scoring 54 points off the long ball – more than the Sixers’ entire first-half output. New York went into halftime up 81-57, and the game was effectively over before anyone had eaten their halftime snack.

The Knicks finished with 25 three-pointers in game 4, setting a franchise playoff record and equaling the most in any NBA playoff game ever. The Sixers went just 8-35 from three, and that 25-8 differential from beyond the arc was tied for the third biggest in NBA playoff history. When you’re getting beaten by 17 made threes, there’s no adjusting your way out of that.

McBride was the star of the night with 25 points on 7-9 from three. Brunson added 22, while Josh Hart and Karl-Anthony Towns each contributed 17. Six Knicks finished in double figures and the second half was, as it should have been, a complete formality.

OG Anunoby missed his second straight game with the hamstring strain he suffered in game 2, but Mike Brown stuck with McBride in the starting lineup and the decision paid off in the most emphatic way possible. The Knicks didn’t need their best player. They had everyone else firing on all cylinders and it was more than enough.

On the Philadelphia side, Joel Embiid finished with 24 points and Maxey had 17, but both looked deflated from the opening minutes. The Sixers never had an answer for the Knicks’ three-point barrage and never found a way to slow down a team that was playing with a completely different level of energy and intensity. Sixers coach Nick Nurse put it simply after the game, saying the energy gap between the two teams was enormous.

There was also one deliciously poetic footnote to this sweep as noted by ESPN. Philadelphia’s two first-round picks from the 2018 draft are still very much active in these playoffs – Mikal Bridges and Landry Shamet, playing for the Knicks. Two players the Sixers once drafted and eventually let go, coming back to sweep them out of their own building. It doesn’t get more fitting than that.

The Knicks have now outscored opponents by 194 points across their 10 playoff games this postseason – the best point differential in a 10-game span in NBA playoff history. Mike Brown has guided this team to seven straight playoff wins since taking over from Tom Thibodeau and the Knicks are playing the best basketball this franchise has seen in a very long time.

They will face the winner of the Cleveland-Detroit series, which Detroit currently leads 2-1, in the Eastern Conference Finals. After last year’s heartbreak against Indiana, this group is hungry. And right now, nobody in the East looks like they can stop them.