PHILADELPHIA — To win a championship, the first order of business is to play championship-level ball. The New York Knicks are doing that. They are meeting the base requirement to make basketball history in a great basketball town.

That does not mean the Knicks will achieve anything of the sort, of course. The Oklahoma City Thunder are the heavy betting favorites to win it all. They will be more than a handful if they are waiting on the other side of the NBA Finals, fixing to go back-to-back.

But right now, the way the Knicks are playing defense and running what their coach, Mike Brown, calls “an equal opportunity offense,” it’s hard to see them losing in the conference finals to a Detroit Pistons team defined by a singular force, Cade Cunningham, assuming Detroit gets there.

Friday night’s Game 3 of the conference semis presented more evidence of why. The Knicks won their sixth straight playoff game, this one by a 108-94 margin, despite the home team scoring the first nine points and taking a 12-point first-quarter lead, pressing the mute button on all the Knicks fans in the crowd.

Over the decades, I’ve seen many Knicks teams that would have punted in this situation. Playing and coaching against human nature is a difficult thing, and with a 2-0 series lead, human nature suggested that the Knicks could have or should have said the hell with Game 3, especially with OG Anunoby sidelined by injury, and waited to take control of the Sixers on Mother’s Day.

But these Knicks don’t give away possessions, never mind games. They fight for everything as if, well, everything depends on it.

A couple of hours before tipoff, Philly coach Nick Nurse said his team was “really bothered by some (Knicks) physicality” earlier in the series. “I thought there were a couple when we drove down the lane and they just clobbered us,” he conceded, “and we throw it straight out of bounds. You gotta play through that. You gotta be able to stay on your feet and be able to complete the pass.”

You don’t often hear NBA coaches talk like that at a podium in the middle of a playoff series. But when they do talk like that, their players often respond as if their essence has been challenged.

The Sixers got outrebounded by the Knicks, 49-33. Anunoby didn’t play and Joel Embiid did, and the Knicks still came across as the much stronger team.

“They kinda punched us in the mouth to start the game,” Brown said. “Our guys settled down, and they figured it out the next three quarters.”

Did they ever. Jalen Brunson did his thing, finishing with 33 points, 9 assists and 5 rebounds, while Mikal Bridges scored 23 and played smothering defense on Tyrese Maxey and whoever else he met at the point of attack.

Josh Hart was all over the floor, on cue, contributing 12 points and 11 rebounds while ignoring his injured left thumb. Mitchell Robinson was his large and disruptive self and added a vicious alley-oop poster dunk over Embiid that might end up getting framed on Mitch’s bedroom wall, and Landry Shamet was great off the bench, too, despite spending most of these playoffs as a front-row spectator (minus the cost of admission).

The Knicks didn’t even need Karl-Anthony Towns to score in double figures, though his 12 rebounds and seven assists were vital. Towns has 56 assists in nine playoff games; he had 24 in 18 last year.

KAT always felt like he could pass the ball, but Brown has turned him into Tom Brady.

Winning the way the Knicks had to in Game 3, Towns said, “is a testament to the guys in this locker room, our discipline, just our mental fortitude to get through all the adversity and just find a way to win.”

Hart embodied that determination and grit, playing hurt after mentioning that the 76ers had a player (Kyle Lowry) who once won an NBA title (Toronto, 2019) while managing a similar injury.

It was a night to have championship visions in mind. Before the game, as I walked to my press row seat inside Xfinity Mobile Arena, someone behind me (a security guard, I thought) forcefully grabbed both my shoulders and pulled me toward him. Startled, I turned to find Spike Lee, all aglow, reminding me that we were watching a potentially great Knicks team on the 56th anniversary of their first title, secured on that forever Game 7 night when Willis Reed hobbled out of the Madison Square Garden tunnel.

The 2025-26 Knicks then honored the date. They absorbed some first-round body blows before they started landing haymakers left and right. If they don’t KO the Sixers on Sunday, they can settle for the gentleman’s sweep at home Tuesday night.

Then what?

Believe it or not, Brunson described these Knicks as something of a work in progress. “I think we still have a lot of room that we can grow,” he said.

If the Knicks keep getting better and better, they will frighten whoever they see in the next two rounds, OKC included.

“I said when I took the job, you don’t really know the team until you get in the trenches with them,” Brown said. “But from the outside looking in, you felt that this team would give you a chance. And they’ve done things throughout the course of the year … that we’re like, ‘OK, yeah, we might have a chance at this.’”

A chance for the Knicks to win the title for the first time in 53 years.

Even with his team sharing the ball like mad, Brown understands that Brunson will be the one who makes the parade possible.

“I’m Linus,” Brown said, “and Jalen’s my blanket.”

Are the Knicks done assuming the role of the NBA’s Charlie Brown? To be determined.

They might not win the championship. But at the moment, they are definitely playing championship ball.