NEW YORK -- For 29 teams, opening night represents a new beginning. For one, it's closer to a conclusion. A period, or in the case of the New York Knicks, an exclamation point, at the end of a championship season.
It was October for the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday, but for everyone else at Madison Square Garden, it might as well have been June 13. Fans were given mini championship banners upon entering the arena, a fitting token as roughly 20,000 awed onlookers watched the Knicks raise their first properly-sized championship banner in more than 53 years. The celebratory haze of New York's last game on that court, the legendary 29-point Game 4 comeback that gave the Knicks a nearly insurmountable NBA Finals lead, still hung in the air of the world's most famous arena.
Even the team played along with gauche golden jerseys, as if they felt the need to wear last year's trophy on their chests. Whatever magic the Knicks captured en route to that trophy seemingly expired on Tuesday as the 76ers so helpfully reminded them that this is, in fact, a new season. Final score: 76ers 106, Knicks 100.
It won't be as simple to survive Karl-Anthony Towns' foul trouble now that Mitchell Robinson is wearing green and white as a member of the Celtics. The Knicks won't overcome seemingly every single fourth-quarter deficit as Jalen Brunson so forcefully ensured last spring. And of course, the field this time around is a good deal stronger than it was during New York's last title push.
In that sense, Philadelphia represented a fitting opponent for opening night. The Knicks tore through last year's 76ers like wet tissue paper. These are not last year's 76ers.
The presence of LeBron James and Jaylen Brown meaningfully changed the equation on Tuesday, and it easily could do so in April and May as well. Look around the Eastern Conference and you'll find similar talent practically everywhere -- teams just as eager to knock the Knicks off of this perch. Kawhi Leonard is back in Toronto.
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