Honestly, the team we have on the floor right now isn't what I'd call a playoff caliber team in the first place. The Eastern Conference is just such a joke right now that a really bad team can make the playoffs.
The 8th and 9th teams in the West -- the Jazz and Mavericks -- are both much better than the Celtics or Bucks.
That's a bridge too far for me, but with the way the Knicks are manhandling us in the second half, it's hard to disagree with. They're a 4th-6th team in the west in my mind.
In the playoffs, I think the Knicks might actually be a better team than the Nuggets. The Nuggets always have the same problem each year -- scoring a lot of points and having a lot of depth don't tend to get you very far in the playoffs. The Knicks, meanwhile, have a great anchor in the paint, multiple savvy veteran ball-handlers, and the league leading scorer. That will take you far if your defense is good, and the Knicks have a good defense.
I still agree with you that the Knicks would be the fourth best team in the West behind OKC, San Anton, and LAC. But that has no bearing on what I am saying, which is that the Celtics would not have made the playoffs if they were a Western conference team, and that there is more than one team in the West that didn't make the playoffs which would be more competitive with the Knicks than the Celtics have been so far in this series.