After losing Wednesday’s potential series clincher in Boston, the Knicks needed their squad to come out with a sense of urgency in tonight’s Game 6. Playing in MSG, in front of thousands of their roaring fans, they would not get a better chance to dethrone the reigning champs. Realizing the opportunity, the New York team brought their A game and dominated the Celtics from the get-go. Leading the charge? Josh Hart.

While every Knicks starter contributed to the scoring, it was Hart’s impressive all-around performance that set the tone. In the process, he also ended the franchise’s 53-year drought with a rare feat. Finishing with 10 points, 11 rebounds, and 11 assists, he tallied the first playoffs triple-double by a Knicks player since Clyde Frazier in 1972.

It’s a massive accomplishment for Hart, considering the Knicks have had only six triple-doubles in their postseason history. Surprisingly, four of them were by Frazier – once in 1969, twice the following year, and the final one in 1972. Per Statmuse, his last one was against the Lakers in the NBA Finals, where he scored 14 points along with twelve boards and eleven assists. Not too far off from what Josh did tonight.

In just two years, Hart has become the heart and soul of this franchise. Sure, he might not be the biggest superstar on the squad, as that tag belongs to Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns. But Josh is always the one doing the dirty work and making the sacrifices for the betterment of his team.

His commitment was evident during Wednesday’s encounter when he took a nasty elbow to the face from Luke Kornet, which left his face with a deep cut. Instead of sitting out the rest of the game, he immediately got cleaned up and dropped a team high 24 points. Even though the Knicks ended up losing, Josh proved his worth. And he did it again tonight, this time while staying on the winning side.

Another major drought ends for Knicks as they eliminate Celtics in six games

While getting a playoff triple-double was a huge individual accomplishment for Hart, an even bigger success was helping his team advance to the Conference Finals. Yes, it has been 25 years since the Knicks last reached that stage. Since then, it has been years of playoffs misery, superstar switches and what not. But finally, they found the right group capable enough to take them to the top. Tonight, their sole focus was to protect home court and stop the Celtics from forcing Game 7, because a game in Boston would not play to their advantage. So, that’s exactly what the Knicks did.

In arguably their best performance of the season, their starters combined for 99 points and blew out the reigning champs by 38 to put this series to bed. Before the game, Hart deemed a reporter’s question “stupid” after he was asked if the Knicks needed to come out with a sense of urgency, “That’s such a stupid question. Every game you want to win, bro. Every game, you want to go out and compete. Obviously, we didn’t do that. But the next game is the next game, and that’s all we’re focusing on.”

And the team proved with their performance that they did not let Wednesday’s loss deter their focus from the ultimate goal. Now, the focus shifts to the Pacers series, with the goal to take this success a step further and advance to the NBA Finals, for the first time since 1999. Do you think they keep the party going?