Star Metro - Knicks most talented since last title says Lucas, '73 champion

And the 86-year-old legend is convinced they can win the Knicks' first NBA championship in 53 years.

"Oh, I feel confident," Lucas said. "They have displayed by far the better skill, more than anything, than any other team this playoff series by far... it's just incredible what they're doing."

The Knicks swept out Cleveland in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference final after sweeping Philadelphia in the second round and dispatching Atlanta in the first round in six games.

Lucas sets this year's Knicks roster above the 1994 squad, which narrowly lost in the finals to Houston, and the 1999 New York side, which fell to San Antonio at the same stage, as the best since the Knicks last won the crown.

"I don't think there's any doubt about that," Lucas said. "They have skill at every position. They have backup skill at every position."

The former center, a member of the 1960 US Olympic gold medal team, has watched every Knicks playoff game despite living in Ohio, where he was a college star and played in the NBA for the Cincinnati Royals.

This year's lineup reminds the man once nicknamed "Dr. Memory" of his own title squad from long ago.

"There are some comparisons, of course. The game has changed," Lucas said. "Yes, we had no three point shot when we played, so that has dramatically changed the game, far more than anything I think has ever been introduced into the game.

"We were deep. We're very deep. They have a great center (Karl-Anthony Towns). We had a great center (Willis Reed). We had super shooters, and they have super shooters, so there are a lot of similarities."

Jalen Brunson has made certain the current Knicks sacrifice and work for each other for the benefit of the team, much the way Lucas and his teammates did a generation ago.

"We were an incredibly intelligent team," Lucas said. "This team seems to be a very intelligent team, too, because they know the game, they sacrifice themselves for others, which we did all the time. It's a team sport. It's not one or two guys, it's a bunch of guys, and they all have that attitude, they all have that ability, and it's fun to watch them play."

- 'Vitally important' -

The Knicks are allowing the fewest average points of any playoff team just as Lucas and his squad did in the 1972-3 campaign.

Lucas said his former coach, Red Holtzman, would stress defensive work in half-time talks.

"He knew we knew what to do. He would never talk about offense," Lucas said. "He would always talk about defense, telling us what we were lacking, what we should be doing. 'If we're going to win, we have to be able to stop the other team, because we're not going to always make every shot.' So defense was vitally important."

Lucas, inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1980, was 6-foot-8 (2.03m) and 230 pounds (104kg). He was able to challenge 1960s giants like Wilt Chamberlain by working away from the basket.

"I felt with my ability and being able to go away, I could give our team an advantage when I was in there, and it worked out that way for us," Lucas said.

"And nobody shot the ball from a distance. There was no three point line, so nobody went out there except me. I was able to take Wilt away from the basket, make what would be threes out there today, and change things for us a little bit."

With the Knicks stuck in a 53-year win drought, there's no doubt who Lucas wants to see lift the championship trophy in June.

"We would all like to have seen them won another championship," Lucas said. "And hopefully this will be the year."

P.M.Martin--SMC