Following a statement win on the road over the East-leading Boston Celtics on Thursday, the New York Knicks have a top-10 net rating and are within striking distance of home-court advantage for the first round of the playoffs.

A few months ago, forecasting this would’ve seemed foolhardy.

There was a lot of second-guessing of the Knicks this summer.

For most of the offseason, they seemed like the front-runners to land Donovan Mitchell. At times, it felt like the former Utah Jazz superstar being in New York was a foregone conclusion.

Then, the Cleveland Cavaliers swooped in at the eleventh hour, acquired Mitchell and put him in the position that helped him secure his first All-Star start this season.

The Knicks, meanwhile, began the season with Evan Fournier as their starting 2, stumbled out of the gates (they were 10-13 in early December) and stumbled into more questioning on the Mitchell front.

Why didn’t they just pull the trigger on the deal? Why did they put so much value on RJ Barrett? Was Danny Ainge just trying to stick it to New York?

And the hypothetical that perhaps stung the most:

Just imagine if Donovan Mitchell was playing like this for the Knicks and in Madison Square Garden.