Mike Lupica: With second matchup approaching since postseason battle, can new-look Knicks show they’re better than Indiana Pacers

After all the excitement with the Knicks last spring, at least until it all ended six months ago on another Sunday against the Indiana Pacers, this reality still remains for them: They still haven’t made it past the second round of the playoffs in a quarter of a century.

It seemed they were set up to do that when they were ahead of the Pacers two games to none in the Eastern Conference semifinals. But then Andrew Nembhard made a crazy 31-footer at the end of Game 3, and suddenly it wasn’t 3-0 for the Knicks. Then, in what felt like fast-forward time, it was Game 7 at the Garden — somebody explain to me how, if the place is such a force of nature, it didn’t save them that day — and the Pacers came in and made everything they shot and the Knicks looked both wounded and gassed and, just like that, the Knicks weren’t on their way to Boston and their shot at giving us a big Celtics-Knicks playoff series out of the past was gone.

It is all worth referencing with the Pacers as the opponent for the second time since last May. The Knicks? They’re currently in the business or trying to prove that they’re not only just as good as they were last season, as capable of lighting up Basketball New York, but that Leon Rose and Tom Thibodeau and these players can finally get the Knicks past the second round for the first time since they were in the Eastern Conference finals against — guess who? — the Pacers in 2000.

Sometimes you get the idea, with all the big talk surrounding this Knicks team, that they actually did go toe-to-toe with the Celtics in the Final Four, and are some kind of mortal lock to get there this time. Except it doesn’t always work that way. Except this isn’t just a new season, this is a new Knicks team, and they have much to prove over the 73 games after this game against the Pacers on Sunday.

We know what we had with last year’s Knicks, because we saw and we heard. Even after the baseball season started, they were still the big game in town, and stayed the big game until they lost Game 7 to the Pacers, which is the way it used to be in the 90s, back when we didn’t fully appreciate how good we had it, whether the Knicks won another title or not.

They were, in all ways, a lot more than the second-round Knicks in those days. Now we will see about the 2024-25 New York Knicks, and the latest vision of them from the first of Rose & Thibodeau. We will see how it works out with Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges instead of Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo. We’re going to find out how it’s going to work now that they’ve added new ‘Nova Knick — Bridges — to replace DiVincenzo.

And even though it’s silly to make any lasting observations about the New New York ‘Nova Knicks after nine games, and make any lasting determinations about how good we think they can be, it doesn’t mean we can’t talk about what we’ve seen in a small sample so far. We were reminded last spring how much the Knicks still matter around here, and what it really does feel like when they’re the big game. And the way things are going with the Jets and the Giants, we need them more than ever right now.

It’s clear that they’re more talented this season than they were last season. But at the same time, they’re not as deep. We see the problems they are already having with the point of attack on defense, and without a rim protector of any note. We always hear that, well, just wait until Mitchell Robinson is healthy, but it’s reaching the point where all Knicks fans have a right to wonder just how much they can count on Robinson going forward.

There is more: Jalen Brunson, the best guard they’ve had since Clyde and already one of the most popular players the Knicks have ever had, earned all of those “MVP” chants a year ago. But with the responsibilities and the status of being That Guy comes the full-time attention from the other team that comes with it. We’ll see how he’s going to do with having that kind of orange-and-blue target on him this season.

We’ll see how the Knicks do, being the serious contenders they fancy themselves to be, without Towns or Brunson doing much to ever make you think they’re going to be on the NBA’s All-Defensive Team. And we’re going to find out, as the season plays itself out, what the offense is going to look like when Bridges is doing more than standing in the corner.

We know where the bar is set in the Eastern Conference. The bar is the Celtics, who seem to shoot most nights the way the Pacers shot last spring in Game 7. The bar is set by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown and Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis — when he’s on the court — and a baller named Derrick White, all of whom can score and get after it on the defensive end. They are who the Knicks aspire to be. In their own conference and just up the road. They’ve now won two titles in this century, two more than the Knicks have won. We all saw what they did to the Pacers, sweeping them, after the Pacers had just taken the Knicks out in seven games.

Clearly what Leon Rose saw last spring wasn’t enough, which is why Towns and Bridges are here and Randle and DiVincenzo are playing for the Timberwolves. He has tried to make the Knicks better. It doesn’t mean that he has. Just because it looked as if the Knicks were set up to be title contenders doesn’t mean that they will be. The Bucks won a title not too very long ago, and where are they now? The Nuggets looked like they might be a budding-dynasty until they weren’t. And suddenly it’s four years since LeBron and the Lakers won their last title.

The Knicks have more talent in the room now. The season will tell us if that means they are better. Last year’s team fit together, at least until everybody started getting hurt, all the way to Brunson getting hurt in the last game of the season. They worked on the court. Worked, period, especially for their fan base. Those ‘Nova Knicks sure did give us a ride.

Sunday, they get the Pacers for the first time this season. Eventually, if these Knicks are going where they want to go, they will have to be better than the Celtics. How about they show they’re better than the Pacers first?