I can no longer avoid it. I must talk about the New York Knicks.

The Knicks are playing the best basketball I have ever seen them play. This remains true even after Wednesday night, when the Knicks missed a lot of shots, landed in foul trouble, and still somehow took a 2-0 series lead against the Sixers.

• I have spent most of my life simply rooting for the Knicks to make the playoffs. My formative Knicks years were, sadly, during the Isiah Thomas era, when they peaked at 33 wins.

• When the Knicks made the playoffs after a nine-year drought in 2021 and lost to the Hawks, I thought, “That was fun! That’s pretty much all I’ve ever hoped for!”

• When they hit on the Jalen Brunson signing and made the second round in 2023, I thought, “That was fun! That’s pretty much all I’ve ever hoped for!”

• I realize that at some point in my life as a sports fan, I became complacent. I became broadly OK with my teams not competing for championships. After all, I’m a Knicks and Jets fan. What is the point of getting upset about losses?

• I told myself that I was opting out of sports sadness for professional reasons, because I’m a sportswriter. But I think I actually opted out for emotional reasons. I feared being let down if I invested in a team.

• The Knicks snapped me out of that torpor without my permission, and I’m so grateful. They keep pushing to get better when I would’ve been happy settling for “good enough.” Now we’re at the scary part, when we find out whether it was all worth it.