| What do two of the most iconic shots in Knicks playoff history — Allan Houston's series-clinching friendly-bounce running jump shot against the Heat and Larry Johnson's four-point play against the Pacers — have in common?
Neither of the most memorable plays during the run to the 1999 NBA Finals was authored by a hobbled Patrick Ewing, who led those Knicks in points and rebounds per game during his age-36 regular season. In fact, Ewing wasn't even available for the second of those shots.
History became relevant again Thursday when the Knicks announced Julius Randle — their second-best offensive player — is undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery. He hasn't played since Jan. 27.
Knicks fans were entitled to a day to lick their wounds and feel sorry that they will never know what this season's roster was capable of accomplishing at full strength, but now it's time to move forward.
 An injured Patrick Ewing became a bystander during the Knicks' run to the 1999 NBA Finals.
AFP via Getty Images
Start by looking backward.
Why can't the Knicks still make a deep run in the wide-open NBA Eastern Conference just like those 1999 Knicks emerged as the No. 8 seed to upset the Heat, Hawks and Pacers before losing to the Spurs' burgeoning dynasty?
Sure, Ewing was on the floor for the first 11 playoff games that season whereas Randle won't be, but the Hall of Fame center was a shell of his dominant self, averaging 13.1 points and 8.7 rebounds in 31.5 minutes per game before his Achilles finally gave out.
 Knicks guard Allan Houston raised his scoring average by more than two points per game in the 1999 playoffs.
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A quarter-century later, the Knicks will have their best player — Jalen Brunson, an All-Star just entering his prime — ready to make a difference in potential series against teams that finish with nearly identical regular-season records.
What they need is for OG Anunoby to return from tennis elbow and form a supporting cast with Josh Hart, Mitchell Robinson and Donte DiVincenzo that rises to the big moment the way Houston, Johnson and Latrell Sprewell — the league's leading total points scorer (mostly off the bench) during the 1999 playoffs — did in picking up slack for Ewing.
The group should be used to figuring it out without Randle by now.
 Without Julius Randle, the Knicks' playoff hopes rest largely in the hands of Josh Hart, Jalen Brunson and Donte DiVincenzo.
Jason Szenes for the NY Post
Thursday night's bounce-back 120-109 win over the playoff-caliber Kings — led by Brunson's 35 points and a season-high 31 from Hart — was Exhibit A.
The No. 2 Bucks and No. 8 76ers are separated by just 5.5 games in the Eastern Conference standings. A bounce here or there could be the difference for the Knicks (currently the No. 5 seed at 45-31) in potential series against the Magic, Heat, Cavaliers, Pacers or Bucks (worry about the top-seeded Celtics should the time come).
Allan Houston got the bounce once as Ewing watched from the elbow. Why can't one of these Knicks do it with Randle looking on from the bench?
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Cheers in The Bronx Yankees fans whose energy for once had no October outlet just might turn Friday into an Opening Day to remember.
When the Yankees were scheduled to start the season on the road for the first time since the empty-ballpark games of the COVID-19-impacted 2020 season — with seven games against the big-brother Astros and defending National League champion Diamondbacks, to boot — "A Tale of Two Home Openers" began to emerge.
Either the Yankees would limp home making excuses about how pitchers naturally are ahead of hitters at this time of year … and spouting clichés about how the season is a marathon and not a sprint … and redirecting focus to "optimistic" reports of ace Gerrit Cole's injury rehab … and doing anything to avoid the idea that 2024 is going to be a continuation of last season's disappointing playoffs-less 82-80 finish.
Or … this beyond-best-case-scenario.
 Fans will return to Yankee Stadium on Friday for the 6-1 team's home opener.
Michelle Farsi for the NY Post
Take the hype surrounding a typical Opening Day and multiply it to get the vibes expected Friday afternoon against the Blue Jays in the home opener. For the first time since Aug. 6 of last season, the Yankees (6-1) are at least five games over .500 and playing in front of their home fans.
In a city seemingly perpetually overrun by bad sports news — the Knicks' injury woes, the Mets' rough start, the Islanders' and Nets' in-season coaching changes or the Giants losing their most popular player to the Eagles — the Yankees are casting a season-opening bright light to match the hope of a deep Rangers playoff run.
Here are five people who benefit most from the way this Yankee Stadium opener has turned out:
Juan Soto: What would his first real game in pinstripes have looked like if Soto were 5-for-24 over his first seven games as a Yankee, like Jason Giambi was in 2002? Or 4-for-25 like Mark Teixeira in 2009?
We'll never know because Soto is 10-for-29 with a game-saving outfield assist in the ninth inning of the opener and a decisive opposite-field two-out RBI single a few days later. He's the long-awaited Astros-killer.
 Juan Soto can expect quite the reception after a heroics-filled start to his Yankees tenure.
AP
If Yankees fans are trying to woo Soto into signing a long-term extension after the season by showing him support, they won't have to fake it during this homestand.
Giancarlo Stanton: Few Yankees carry more baggage into the season than Stanton, who has a pathetic .284 on-base percentage over 888 plate appearances in 216 games since the start of the 2022 season.
Not exactly what his $325 million contract — the one that has blocked the Yankees from pursuing other big free agents such as Bryce Harper and Manny Machado and is feared by doomsayers to be what could prevent a big free-agent offer to Soto — is supposed to produce.
But a 6-1 record, with Soto replacing him as the other part of the 1-2 punch with Aaron Judge, should buy Stanton a little bit of a grace period.
Marcus Stroman: Remember when he ripped the Yankees and general manager Brian Cashman for underachieving a few years ago?
Remember when turned down the opportunity to start Opening Day — in place of Cole — and angered fans who thought he thumbed his nose at the perceived honor a few weeks ago?
 Marcus Stroman is scheduled to start for the Yankees after declining the opportunity to start in Game 1.
Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post
Both controversies feel like ancient history now because the Yankees started fast despite mixed results from their starting rotation. Stroman's decision to remain in the No. 3 spot in the rotation left him in line to start the home opener, which suddenly feels like a bigger deal for the native Long Islander than debuting in Houston.
Alex Verdugo: Too soon for Yankees fans to embrace another Red Sox outfielder, after the disaster that was Jacoby Ellsbury?
Verdugo bought himself some Johnny Damon good will with his go-ahead 10th-inning home run Wednesday in the road-trip finale.
The Yankees are limiting Verdugo to one diamond-studded chain around his neck per game, instead of the three or four he flashed during his time in Boston.
It sounds like a silly storyline right now because the Yankees are winning. If they were losing, it would be easy to frame Verdugo telling the Associated Press that it's been a "hard" adjustment as griping and a possible distraction.
 The Yankees' rollicking start takes at least some of the heat off manager Aaron Boone.
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Aaron Boone: The manager's job security was a big topic of discussion the last time the Yankees played at home. And when the Yankees revealed on Nov. 7 that Boone was returning for a seventh season at the helm, plenty of fans groaned about owner Hal Steinbrenner's distaste for change and acceptance of mediocrity.
Boone certainly appears to be pushing the right buttons in the early going: not force-feeding Stanton so that Judge got two days off his feet in center field, managing a shorthanded bullpen with a 2.53 ERA in 64 innings and not yet needing to get himself ejected as a caricature of the great Earl Weaver to try to light a fire under a listless team.
Greatness vs. greatness After Caitlin Clark and Iowa dispatched of rival Angel Reese and LSU during a much-hyped national-championship game rematch in the women's Elite Eight, only one active figure in the sport could feel like a worthy next adversary in the Final Four.
Here comes a Friday matchup (9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) of Clark — the all-time leading scorer in men's or women's college basketball — against Geno Auriemma and his record 11 national championships as coach at UConn.
 Caitlin Clark has averaged more than 32 points per game through the first four games of this year's NCAA Tournament, including a 41-point explosion against LSU.
AP
LSU coach Kim Mulkey was late to adjust off of a poorly devised game plan of having Hailey Van Lith defend Clark, without the help of traps or double-teams. The record-setting sharpshooter was well into a rhythm that led to 41 points on nine 3-pointers by the time LSU made a fourth-quarter switch to have the quicker Flau'jae Johnson harass Clark.
Auriemma won't repeat that same mistake.
Over the course of 39 seasons, he has devised game plans to defend Chamique Holdsclaw, Alana Beard, Seimone Augustus, Candace Parker, Skylar Diggins, Sabrina Ionescu and countless other All-Americans who were playmakers with the ball in their hands. Not to mention he has seen all the best perimeter defensive game plans thrown at his own array of all-time greats, from Sue Bird to Diana Taurasi to Maya Moore to his current All-American living in Clark's enormous shadow, Paige Bueckers.
If there is a way to force the ball out of Clark's hands and make the rest of the Hawkeyes beat you, Auriemma will try it. The problem, of course, is Clark also is a savant at setting up her teammates with crisp passes.
In two previous meetings against UConn, Clark is averaging 23 points, five rebounds and 5.5 assists, but Iowa is 0-2. She shot a combined 16-of-45 from the field, including 6-of-23 from the 3-point range.
 Even with 11 national titles to his credit, UConn head coach Geno Auriemma will need to be at his most strategic to slow down Caitlin Clark.
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If Clark finally cracks Auriemma's wizardry in the Final Four, there is a strong chance undefeated South Carolina will be waiting at 3 p.m. Sunday in the national championship game (as long as it outlasts North Carolina State in Friday's 7 p.m. Final Four matchup).
Surviving a three-game championship gauntlet of LSU-UConn-South Carolina, while factoring in the extra circumstances around each of those matchups, would be an all-time postseason run worthy of its place on a Mount Rushmore with any NCAA single-season champion.
Pressure boiling over If you think Purdue buried its recent NCAA Tournament ghosts by advancing to the men's Final Four for the first time since 1980, think again.
No team faces more pressure this weekend than Purdue, an 8.5-point favorite in its Saturday matchup (6:09 p.m. ET, TBS) against Cinderella qualifier North Carolina State. Not even UConn, which is an 11.5-point favorite against Alabama in the doubleheader nightcap after steamrolling its way to 10 straight wins by at least 13 points apiece over the past two NCAA Tournaments.
It is up to Zach Edey and the Boilermakers to deliver a much-anticipated heavyweight national title bout Monday against the Huskies, which would be just the fourth matchup of No. 1 seeds playing for the championship since 2009. Two of the other three — Duke's 68-63 win over Wisconsin in 2015 and North Carolina's 71-65 win over Gonzaga in 2017 — produced back-and-forth second halves that are much more memorable than what transpired in Baylor's 86-70 rout of Gonzaga in 2021.
 Zach Edey led Purdue to its first Final Four since 1980. The Boilermakers will meet an NC State squad that hasn't been there since 1983.
Getty Images
If somehow the Huskies are to lose in the Final Four, they can fall back on having won last year's national title and on losing to an opponent that already took down fellow No. 1 seed North Carolina.
But if the Boilermakers fall short against No. 11 NC State — winners of nine straight and only in the field by a bid-stealing title in the ACC Tournament — ugly history is easy to dredge up.
It won't quite be seen the same as losing as a No. 4 to No. 13 North Texas in the first round in 2021 or losing as a No. 2 to No. 15 Saint Peter's in the Sweet 16 in 2023 or losing as a No. 1 to No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson in the first round in 2023.
But it will cast Purdue as something of a Disney villain — destined to be perennially thwarted by Cinderellas.
Banner year Hang your banner with pride, Seton Hall.
Away from the spotlight of the NCAA Tournament, Seton Hall men's basketball — which finished two spots out of an at-large berth in the Big Dance on Selection Sunday — completed a dominant run to the NIT title Thursday night by beating Indiana State, 79-77, in the final at Butler's historic Hinkle Fieldhouse.
 Kadary Richmond and Seton Hall got a small measure of redemption for being left out of the NCAA Tournament by winning the NIT.
AP
How much rolling North Texas, UNLV and Georgia by an average of 18 points per game on the way to the final will help build momentum for second-year head coach Shaheen Holloway's program is anyone's guess. Especially in the era of NIL, the transfer portal and widespread year-to-year roster turnover.
But, in the debate over whether it's better to make a run in the NIT or just be one of the 68 teams in the NCAA Tournament, here's our take: The NIT winner is the only team that was better off playing for the consolation prize than losing in the NCAA Tournament.
Sorry, Indiana State.
Even one NCAA Tournament win trumps all scenarios. Winning the NIT title is better than losing a "did it really happen?" NCAA Tournament First Four game. Losing any NIT game — even the final — is worse than losing in the First Four.
What we're reading 👀 ⚾ The Mets are on the board! Three outs from the unabated misery of an 0-6 start, Pete Alonso hit a game-tying home run and Tyrone Taylor walked it off in the bottom of the ninth to salvage a split of an afternoon doubleheader against the Tigers. It was Carlos Mendoza's first win as manager.
🏒 "I'm not sure I have ever encountered a player who is as authentic, comfortable in his skin and as happy to be here." That's how The Post's Larry Brooks describes rookie Rangers enforcer Matt Rempe, who was still buzzing one day later about the "wicked" line brawl against the Devils.
🏒 The Islanders are either the worst good team or the best bad team in the NHL. They're also back in playoff position after winning their third straight game, 4-2 over the Blue Jackets.
⚾ The A's are planning to go 61-101 in a 10,000-seat stadium in Sacramento instead.
⚾ Bet you didn't see this new Shohei Ohtani story coming.
🎾 The WTA is getting fully in league with Saudi Arabia, which will now host the tour Finals.
🏈 Is this college football "Super League" a real idea or a PowerPoint presentation?
🚴♂️ From the wide world of sports: A gnarly wipeout by the reigning Tour de France winner.
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