Knicks finally can exhale after returning to their championship identity

Sure, IT looked grim. The Garden was glum. Patience was being tested, all around the gym. The supply of serenity was running out, and in a hurry. The Knicks couldn’t shoot — again. The Knicks couldn’t defend — again. The Pistons scored 38 points in the first quarter, after the Magic dropped 40 on them in the fourth Sunday.

The Knicks only scored 25.

The Knicks were 0-3 and it sure looked like they were careening toward 0-4. We already knew the last defending champion to start a season 0-4 was the 1969-70 Celtics, the first Boston team of the post-Bill Russell Era. There are a lot of Celtics things the Knicks would love to emulate. This was not one of them.

And maybe, if you were feeling a little bit of an extra gallows mood, you started looking up who the last defending champion was to start a season 0-5. And the answer to that one was even more chilling: No defending champ has ever started 0-5.