Rich Castellano was 22 when he watched the Knicks beat the Lakers in the 1973 NBA Finals, and the way that team moved the ball stuck with him for more than 50 years. Now, the Northport coach says he sees the same thing in the 2026 Knicks: a group that shares, cuts and trusts one another enough to make the whole look larger than the parts.
That is why the search for new york basketball teams is landing on this stretch run now. The Knicks had only three playoff losses and built an NBA-record 273-point differential over a 13-game winning streak before it ended Monday night in a 115-111 loss at Madison Square Garden. For Castellano, the math is simple enough to explain to players: a point differential is the margin left after every point scored is subtracted from every point allowed, so a run like that says the same thing in numbers that ball movement says on the floor.
Castellano pointed to Josh Hart, Deuce McBride, Mitchell Robinson and Karl-Anthony Towns as examples of what makes this group hard to guard. “Whether it be Hart or McBride or Mitchell Robinson or Towns, all the guys share the ball. They look out for one another,” he said. He added that if a defense has to load up on one player, the Knicks are making it answer for everyone else. That kind of balance is also why coaches keep reaching back to the 1973 team as the comparison point. The memory is not just about a banner. It is about a style that made teammates useful to one another on every possession.
Bill Mitaritonna said he became a Knicks fan as soon as Patrick Ewing got drafted, and he still remembers watching Michael Jordan’s Bulls at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 23, 1987, when Gerald Wilkins held Jordan to 16 points over 39 minutes. He said that background makes the current run useful as a lesson because Mitchell Robinson, Jose Alvarado and Landry Shamet have become critical playoff contributors off the bench. Sarah Tansey said the team’s Eastern Conference semifinal appearances in 2023 and 2024, along with the conference finals series in 2025, helped set up the belief around this group. Even so, the same depth that draws praise also came into focus when Jalen Brunson struggled early in Games 1 and 2 against San Antonio and others had to lift the load. That is the part coaches will remember: a team can survive a star’s slow start when the bench and the starters are wired to play the same way.
Castellano, who has coached Northport since the 1979-80 season, said that is the point he tries to pass on every year: coaching is teaching. The Knicks, in his view, are giving him a live example he can point to, one where the lesson is not about one scorer carrying everyone else but about five players making the next pass. As long as that keeps showing up, the comparison to 1973 will keep sounding less like nostalgia and more like a current standard.
