Flash forward to the present and the Knicks are coming off a 53-win season – amazingly, their fourth straight increased win total – and find themselves back in the Eastern Conference Finals as they seek their first trip to the NBA Finals since 1998-99.

Their other bugaboo, and the more recent trend: Failing to win on the road in the playoffs. Cleveland had dropped all five roads games until prevailing on Wednesday in overtime in Detroit to seize a 3-2 lead in their Eastern Conference semifinals.

Dosunmo had a career best 60 per cent effective field goal percentage this season and really seemed to come into his own after the trade, performing at a top 80 player level on a per-game rate.

In the deciding game on Sunday, the Magic came out strong, but Detroit took over in the second quarter and cruised to a 116-94 win.

In 2025-26, Denver bounced back to 54 wins and has its sights set on getting back to the conference finals for the first time since its 2022-23 championship season, but it’s not going to be easy.

In fact, Hield had only played in 25 total minutes with Atlanta before going off on Sunday for his best game of the season. Even before landing on the Hawks, he was only playing 17.5 MPG, so not really enough to provide consistent Fantasy value, but when he played just five minutes in his Atlanta debut, the writing was on the wall: he’s not Fantasy relevant anymore.

Just two years ago, the Toronto Raptors managed just 25 wins and things looked pretty bleak for a team that had won the championship just a few years earlier. However, Toronto bumped that total to 30 last season, and despite some recent struggles is now closing in on 45 wins this season with five games remaining.