Three weeks ago, the Knicks did a thing that, in all my sentient years on Earth, they’ve never done: avoid a completely embarrassing disaster. It was Game 6 of the NBA playoffs, on the road in the first round against a scrappy, overachieving Detroit Pistons team that was riding the clever playmaking of Cade Cunningham, unconscious shotmaking of Malik Beasley, and veteran leadership of J. Cole doppelgänger Tobias Harris. The Knicks were up three games to two in a series that, given their talent, should not have gone more than four or five games. Instead, because they’re the Knicks, they were tied with Detroit at 113 with 20 seconds left, trying to stave off a Game 7 that no New Yorker would feel good about.

I was on my couch having flashbacks to all of the disappointments of the last 20 years—the misplaced faith in washed-up cast offs (Steve Francis, T-Mac), draft picks that didn’t pan out (Landry Fields, Frank Ntilikina, Mardy Collins), and Eddy Curry—as the ball was inbounded to the Knicks’ shifty star point guard, Jalen Brunson. Of course, stubborn coach Tom Thibodeau went with his only play, a Jalen Brunson iso, while the starters huffed and puffed from playing nearly the entire game. If you want to know how many minutes Thibodeau forces on his starting five, billy woods, on his new album, GOLLIWOG, over a mean Conductor Williams beat, said, “I ground niggas down like Coach Thibs.”

Time stood still for the next 20 seconds. Brunson pounded the air out of the ball at midcourt, hounded by the Pistons’ rising defender Ausar Thompson, whose superhuman combination of length, athleticism, and foot speed had bothered Brunson all series. With the clock down to eight, Brunson went left with Thompson attached to his hip. It seemed like he wouldn’t be able to shake him. Then, all of a sudden, Brunson snatched the ball through his legs to his right hand and sent Thompson flying nearly into the courtside seats where you’d expect to see Tee Grizzley or some other regional Detroit rappers.

Alone at the top of the key, Brunson dribbled into a wide open three and drilled it, and the Knicks went on to win 116-113. It felt like more than a game winner, with the Knicks finally beating their demons. Still, it wouldn’t be the Knicks if something at least a little embarrassing didn’t happen. After the game, Brunson posted a slideshow of the big win on his Instagram with the caption, “Recovery Track 9,” a reference to “No Love,” the brutal mid-career Eminem song with squirmish lyrics like, “They say the competition is stiff/But I get a hard dick from this shit, now stick it in.” The greatest Knicks team of my life is also the corniest Knicks team of my life. I love them anyway.