Knicks sit at pivotal crossroads — it’s time for them to fight back

DETROIT — There comes a point, you would expect, when the Knicks grow weary of hearing about how they’ve been pushed around, about how their default position has become “soft,” about how they’ve become Mac — the 98-pound weakling who used to appear in the back of comic books in those old Charles Atlas ads.

There comes a point, you would imagine, when the Knicks would like to remind the general public, as well as the Detroit Pistons, that they did not earn the higher seed in this best-of-seven playoff series in a lottery, that over the course of 82 games they won seven more games, a not-so-insignificant number.

There comes a point, you would hope, when the Knicks, collectively, scream, “Enough!”

This needs to be that point. The Knicks sit at a most pivotal crossroads of the five-year Leon Rose-Tom Thibodeau partnership that rescued the franchise from the depths of despair. It is the belief of many who care for the Knicks that Rose and Thibodeau have been duly thanked for this heavy bit of basketball lifting, and we have entered a new realm where being good — even very good — is no longer enough.