The beginning of the end for me was trading Mason, and then trading Starks away. Finally having Isiah Thomas come in and completely fuck things up made it really easy for me to give up. And the current NBA is completely unwatchable. I'd much rather watch these old clips than go see a game in person now.
You are so right John Starks is one of my all-time great Knick players Do you remember the time when he went baseline and dunked over Jordan and Pippen with his left hand? Starks was different
@@kinglord7707yep. There are no more guys like Oakley out there. If you drove the lane on him the next time you did it he tried to knock your teeth out of your head.
Wonderful compilation. Those were my favorite teams to watch. Just a heads up - some of these are from 91-92. Unfortunately, they did not bring X back for a second season. They probably should have instead of getting Smith.
I will never understand the Charles Smith move. It made as much sense as the Knicks picking Frederic Weiss in the draft, after he made it very clear he'd never play basketball in the U.S.
@@Genious. they were always trying to get that #2 guy for Ewing. The irony being they had him in Strickland, chose Mark Jackson over him, and then ended up moving Mark Jackson for Smith. Smith had some promise but as a power forward in an up tempo offense. It would have taken some chutzpah but put Oak on the bench and run Strickland, Starks, X, Smith, and Pat and pick up the pace... that's a pretty damn good lineup.
lol some ppl dont understand why new yorkers loved these guys despite not winning a championship.. same reason why you probably dont understand new yorkers in the first place!
@G Ma the ppl who question us. the ppl who watch videos about us.. the people that hate us so much because they DONT' UNDERSTAND new yorkers.. love us or hate us, we are obviously the center of everyone's attention.. shit you being here watching a video of the 90s knicks and commenting is PROOF of that.. lol
@G Ma and I never said you WANT to understand us. quite frankly WHO CARES IF YOU DO OR NOT.. we got 9 million ppl living here, trust us pal, we got ENOUGH problems to even be concerned with you.. lol.. now go tell your friends and family how you had a REAL LIVE ARGUMENT WITH A REAL LIVE NEW YORKER.. LOL..
This was a team that WENT TO WAR every night. Roughnecks all of em'. They even fought each other at practice. But when the game was on they held each other down!
I grew up watching these guys, brings back a lot of memories, I wanted to play like them, I'm still a knicks fan to this very day even though they are nowhere near to be what they used to.
Knicks, Detroit, Indiana, Miami, Philly, Charlotte in the early 90s had football players. 6'9 250 to 7'0 300 pound lineman. I didn't even mention Shaq in Orlando. That is why Space Jam was made. Jordan had to defeat all these monster teams.
@@blilla9142 the rules wont allow the knicks to play the way back then.. cant crowd the shooter, cant hand check, more foul calls, stiffer penalties.. likewise shooters today excel at shooting and driving and would not be as efficient back then..
@@benyah3390 why would Jordan havr any say on Knicks' transition moves lol. Unless he con the Knicks to trade for Charles Smith and get rid of Mcdaniel BC he was trouble for the Bulls.
@@Joseph-lz5er because he & MJ had David Faulk as an agent & "supposedly" Jordan told Faulk to make sure McDaniel doesn't resign with NY or else he'd be out of a client.
My first NBA game ever was Knicks vs. pistons at the Garden. I think it was 89. I remember we were allowed to walk behind the bench and talk to some of the players on the Pistons. My dad slapped Daryl Dawkins on the shoulder and said “hey maybe you should break the backboard tonight?” Dawkins laughed and turned around to us like “yeah maybe I should!” Dawkins was a really friendly, nice guy.
Those earl 90's Knicks teams were some of the most physically tough, intimidating, and abusive teams in NBA history. That era is up there with the likes of the late '90's to early 2000's Portland Trail-Blazers, (aka - The Jail-Blazers era), the "Bad-Boys" era in Detroit from late 80's to early 90's, the mid to late 80's Sonics, and the mid 2000's Pacers. Specifically, even though this year in particular they were really im0posing and physical, the 92 Knicks team was even more. Due to the fact that on top of having "bad-boys" like Anthony Mason, Charles Oakley, and John Starks - they also had the king of all badasses - Xavier McDaniel! A guy who was one of the most unstoppable scorers of the late 80's and early 90's before coming to New-York and a phenomenal defender of everything from SG's to PF's, but he was also if not the single most bad-ass enforcer of all time, at the very least tied at number one! I personally rank him as number 1 in league history, with the rest of the top 10 being Rasheed Wallace, Rick Mahorn, Bill Lambier, Ron Artest, Barkley, PJ Brown, Rodman, and McDaniel's two teammates in NY in 1992 - the forementioned Anthony Mason, and Oakley.
the only guys on that list that were REALLY tough and above everyone else is Mahorn, Oakley, Mason and the X-Man.. Ron Artest had mental issues, and Lambieer was more of a DIRTY player. also ppl like Alonzo Mourning and Jason Williams are tougher than some of the other dudes on that list (Sheed and PJ Brown). but other than that, I do agree wiht you.
@@soramirez5473 I think you misunderstood what i meant by tough bad-boys. Zo was that to a degree, but he wasn't gonna knock you to the ground when you tried to go up and dunk and then just loom over you because their team had a "no lay-up" policy the way Lambier did in Detroit. Or physically body up ball-handlers the way Artest did, and then terrify opposing players if they got into a stare-down with him the way he did to the Pacers' Hansburough once, or then go up into the stands and beat the shit outa fans. Or players who would literally pick you up, twirl you around, and then drop you on your head the way PJ Brown did to Charlie Ward after Ward started going chest to chest with his teammate. The only other guy that shoulda been on that list that i completely forgot about was Rodman. Im not calling these players tough because they were physically the strongest, i was talking more along the lines of players who have/had a "bad-boy" image and physically abusive play style that genuinely impacted the other team's play style because of that physicality. Guys who were imposing and intimidating, and yes - doing shit that was considered "dirty". Like choking other players, both in the middle of the game and teammates at practice the way the X-Man did. Players who were seen as the "villains" of the league.
@@8301TheJMan there are interviews of players back then that talk about the difference between east and west coast style of NBA play.. they talked about in the east getting hit and bodied on every play and ever AFTERWARDS by Oakley, Mason and ZO.. THEIR words, not mine.. and as for PJ brown, Im a knicks fan and watched those games and PJ brown flipping a 6 ft 1 charlie ward is an enforcer? lol he flipped a dirty choir boy in his own words. Zo was the enforcer on that team NOT PJ brown.. Shoot Kurt Thoms "krazy eyes" is an enforcer.. Rodman is the Worm cuz he gets under ppl's skin, NOT cuz he was some sort of tough guy.
@@soramirez5473 I definitely get your point about Zo, but wasn't implying that simply because of the certain examples i gave were somehow by themselves proof positive that these guys were enforcers. The reason why i think PJ was more so than Mourning is due to him being pretty exclusively known for them being enforcer role player, whereas with Zo on the other hand was also one of if not the single go-to scorers and leaders of those Heat and Hornets teams in the 90's. I still don't think you understand the criteria for that list. I'm not talking abut guys who are just the team's enforcer, but ones who had an image around the league and fans where they loved having them on their team, but absolutely despised them if they weren't.
@@8301TheJMan some guys were antagonizers.. some guys were ACTUAL physical presences.. PJ brown was an antagonizer.. so was Charlie Ward, that's why he got flipped lol.
That mark Jackson pass over the shoulder to Ewing was nice. Chris Morris and Starks going head to head with a couple of nasty dunks. Kids think the stars today are lightyears better than this generation. Ya, let's beat france before we talk about the 90s teams
I'm a diehard NY Knicks fan. And I loved the Knicks especially during those 1990's years. But I'm not too ignorant to understand that the Bad Boys Detroit Pistons were the toughest NBA team ever. But I enjoyed the Knicks heart during that decade. What I liked and felt was awesome were heated moments when the referees were not in a rush to call technical fouls and tried to break up dustups before they turned into fights. That was entertaining to watch. Nice video. I indeed remembered some of these game highlights.
@Todd Sands Thanks for the _FACTS_ . Well said... I totally agree with you. The Bad Boys Detroit Pistons were DEFINITELY the toughest NBA team ever. With back to back championships accomplished 🏀🍾🍾👍🏽
Thats because Detroit was a better offensive team than the knicks not because they were tougher. The Knicks played the best team defense witout a doubt@@Scorpion_Hot
This rarely happens now a days. Most of these players are friends and a lot of these games are lacking the competitive fire it once had. Now it seems they come and play for a check and go home.
On paper the Knicks should've won the championship in 92, 93, and 94... but damn it was alway good watching the Knicks in the 90s... R.I.P Anthony Mason
I miss when the Knicks played (professional-street style) basketball. The NBA in general was a lot tougher environment to play in. It was a lot more entertaining too.
When you have a top 5 player in the league in Ewing you are become a contender immediately. Ewing led the league in defensive win shares 4 times and defensive rating 3 times. While finishing top 5 in mvp voting 6 times. MVP voting is the best metric to who was considered by experts as a top 5 player!
A great team with a great coach full of badass guys, however when you play against the GOAT in his prime you have no chance, they could only beat the Bulls in the finales w/o MJ
As a knicks fan I feel the 90s Knicks never overcame the Chicago bulls, their chance was in 1993 but man was it fun being a New York Knicks fan back in those days
nah. i'd give that title to the bad boy pistons.. and they won back-to-back titles. playoff wins in their two title runs include: celtics with larry bird, showtime lakers, drexler led trailblazers,atl hawks with domonique, and the ewing led knicks, and let's not forget the bulls with air jordan.
It's definitely between those 2 teams. The bad boys were the better team at playing basketball for sure but i give the slight edge to the Knicks on strictly toughness
@@bballvault it I i'll give the knicks credit they were tough. both teams made you think twice about bringing that ball in the paint lol. still have to give the edge to the pistons though. playing that brand of bball, and not only getting it done, but doing it back-to-back.
there is a reason they never won. the bulls were never known as a physical team. athleticism > physicality. the funny thing is people talk like the defense from that era was some sort of cheat code. They don't realize that many players kept playing when rules changed. the bum who scored 5 didn't start scoring 15. they just talk like they did. hundreds of players kept playing and they weren't really all that better. it's the same bell curve when it comes to production. we can see it but since most of us never really got over the " i scored 50, i'm better than the rest" high school attitude.... if the whole group from era stopped playing, then maybe we have an argument.
Those MEN were some straight up beasts, following Boston and Detroit and Indianapolis after them. Their physicality and athleticism is a testament to the greatness of Jordan, who had a harder time going thru them than any of his Western opponents in the Finals.
@@ΚατερίναΔ-ζ6υ I mentioned Jordan in reference to their tenacity and the fact they were brought together to unseat him. Social media does not concern itself with those who disagree with it. Not at all.
How is this the toughest team ever - if they never won a chip? Da Bulls were mentally tougher as were the Bad Boy Pistons. I respect the Knicks and this era, but they definitely were not the toughest team of all time. Pat Ewing was settling for mid-range jump shots, Oak was taking cheap shots, and Charles Smith got stuffed beneath the basket 5x in a row. You must be from New York. I have lived in both Chicago and The Bronx. New Yorkers can be a bit delusional and over the top.
The thing that killed them in the playoffs was down the stretch in a close game. The Bulls threat already had the ball in his hands. The Knicks had to get their threat the ball and that was a huge problem back in those days with how physical the game was as the defense was often able to keep Ewing far enough from the paint in crunch time before he got the ball. Oakley and Mason had everyone's back, but they didn't know that the difference at the end of a game was all based on how many times that ball went into the basket, and they were useless in a close game down the stretch because everyone knew they couldn't score and they'd never be called upon. As much as Michael was used to score the last few baskets, he had other players on the court that could actually put the ball in the basket.
Well ,for me the detroit pistons of 1989 - 92 we're the most rude team ever ,think about it .the Beat Larry Bird ,Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan un those years .
Anthony Mason should've been the focal point of this offense and had the ball funnelled thru him... Starks Harper Mcdaniels Mason Ewing I didn't know who Tim Perry was before today then I researched and realized he's one of few that dunked on Shaq. That dunk on Ewing was sick
Mason? Every time he got a rebound his first move was to put the ball back on the floor before going back up. He basically took his scary body down to the level of whoever was guarding him and let them have the advantage. It's mind boggling how no coach on the Knicks ever fixed that problem.
Chicago owns the 90s ifJordan hadn't retired 1 and 1/2 years and if the had kept the team together in 99 the would've won 9 titles in 10 years. But the Nicks, Utah. Sonics Indiana Phoenix. Would win championships in todays NBA. They were bad ass good.
