LAS VEGAS — Rivalries usually don’t form in just the regular season — heated playoff matchups are typically needed for that.
But this feels like what could be the start of a budding rivalry.
The Knicks’ NBA Cup semifinal matchup against the Magic on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena will already be the fourth meeting between the two teams just 25 games into the season.
The Knicks won the latest of the three matchups and can even the series at 2-2 with a win Saturday, though this one would be sweeter given the elimination stakes.
The Knicks and Magic sit in second and fourth in the Eastern Conference, respectively, separated by 2 ½ games.
“They definitely know who we are,” coach Mike Brown said after Knicks practice Friday, “and we know who they are.”
Magic star Paolo Banchero added, “It’s a team that we’ve played three times already. They are familiar with us. We’re familiar with them.”
But it’s more than just the familiarity or the unusual amount of meetings so early in the year that have made this a contentious clash. It’s how those games have been played that has laid the groundwork for a rivalry.
The Magic pride themselves on their physicality, and they punked the Knicks in the first two matchups before the Knicks better handled it in the most recent meeting. There have been injuries that caused players to miss time in all three previous meetings: Jalen Brunson and Paolo Banchero in the first, Landry Shamet in the second and Miles McBride and Franz Wagner in the third.
“Yeah, they are really physical,” Brunson said. “That’s what Coach [Jamahl Mosley] prides himself on. The way that they have been able to do it makes them very successful. …They are going to be who they are, and they are going to come out here and compete. And so I think for us, we have to be ready to do what we’ve got to do and combat that.”
“One through 15, that’s our goal,” Desmond Bane said. “To be the most physical team on both ends of the floor every single night. When we win, we usually do that.”
That physicality has boiled over at times as well. In the last game, Bane chucked the ball at OG Anunoby, who was on the ground and out of bounds. Though he later laughed it off, Anunoby shoved Bane and exchanged a few words with him. Bane was given a technical foul and subsequently fined by the league.
It is also what makes this matchup an intriguing clash of styles — physicality and aggression against skill and finesse. The Magic like to think of themselves as bullies. That’s not part of the Knicks’ reputation.
So for as much as the Knicks want to combat and match that physicality, it is also important they stay true to themselves.
“There’s a lot of ways you combat it, obviously with physicality, but I would move it with space and transition, getting stops and running,” Brunson said. “I think no matter what, they are going to play their solid basketball. We have to play ours and do it to the best of our abilities. … They do what they do well, and so we have to do what we do well and go from there.”
Last year, the Pistons emerged as a newfound rival because of the hard-fought playoff series in the first round. There are not yet playoff stakes in this rivalry with the Magic, but the NBA Cup provides extra elimination juice.
“I think that it’s two good basketball teams, two teams that are trying to do something big in the Eastern Conference,” Bane said. “I think that any time you have a team that’s standing in the way of what you’re trying to do, it should be a little something extra on the line.”
And beyond the NBA Cup, both teams figure to be players in the East during the playoffs. The Knicks have set finals-or-bust expectations, and the Magic could certainly represent a roadblock.
“They are a good team,” Banchero said. “We have won twice. They have won once. They are at the top of the East. So we’re looking forward to kind of seeing them all year.”
Any playoff matchup will have to wait. But Saturday can truly raise the temperature between the teams.
