In the final moments of a win over the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday night, the crowd at Madison Square Garden rose and cheered, briefly raising echoes of the 1990s Knicks teams that the Knicks themselves had announced they would try to mimic this season.
There were chants for defense, celebration when Frank Ntilikina ripped the ball from Luka Doncic and dived to the floor to strip it from Tim Hardaway Jr., even happiness when Marcus Morris deflected an inbounds pass in the final seconds without looking back — a play he joked would have been called pass interference in the NFL.