Now, the Knicks are on their way to the Eastern Conference Finals, awaiting the outcome of the Detroit Pistons/Cleveland Cavaliers series. Eight more wins. That’s all they need to end this half-century-long drought. But is this going to be the year that the Knicks finally get that metaphorical cat off their back?

Why The Knicks Are Playing So Well

Outside of the Oklahoma City Thunder (who have yet to lose a playoff game), the Knicks have been playing the best basketball in the league right now. After falling behind 2-1 in the first round, New York has won seven straight games against the Atlanta Hawks and Philadelphia 76ers by an average margin of victory of 26.4 PPG. Overall, the Knicks have a point differential of +194, the largest such differential of any team through 10 games in playoff history.

Despite sporting basically the same roster as last year, the Knicks are just better on both sides of the ball. New York is third in offensive rating after finishing fifth last year, and its defense has vaulted up from 14th to seventh.

Just a few weeks ago, I questioned head coach Mike Brown’s acumen, but after more evidence, it is clear that he is the right man for the job.

After spending last year as an offense predicated on talent and shot-making, the Knicks have become a multi-faceted machine, capable of knocking opponents off balance with a combination of well-placed jabs and crosses. Jalen Brunson’s brand of backyard heliocentricism still exists, but OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges are also capable of running pick-and-roll in a pinch.

Their cutting and ball movement is crisper than before (the Knicks are throwing 19.4 more passes per game than they did last postseason). Their offensive shot chart has become more modern (12th in 3-point attempt rate), while upholding the crashing principles that originally spurned their rise to relevance (fifth in offensive rebounding rate).

The greatest revelation of all came after their Game 3 loss to the Hawks. After failing to surpass the 110 points scored mark in back-to-back games, Brown decided it was time to empower his polarizing Karl-Anthony Towns. Put the ball in his hands and give him more decision-making equity. Turn him into something other than an overpriced spacer.

At a glance, this concept seems novel. One guy holding the ball at the top of the arc, waiting for a cutter to be freed up for a layup, doesn’t really thread the needle of creativity compared to some of the other concepts we see in 2026.

However, these delay concepts are highly effective for a few very simple reasons. First, Towns may struggle making passes on the move, but in a standstill (like in the clip above), he can calmly survey the floor and deliver pinpoint passes. Second, since the Knicks boast a ton of size disparity (most teams don’t love the idea of switching a point guard onto Anunoby), these flex concepts can’t be defanged with a simple switch.

And third, since Towns may be the greatest shooting big man of all-time, his man can’t sag off him, and since that player is typically a center (since Towns has done a great job of bullying smaller defenders this postseason), that means there is no one in the paint to safeguard the rim.

In Brown, The Knicks Trust

Coaching is so hard to measure. In the past, I’ve tried to come up with analytical ways to measure certain elements of it. But at the end of the day, there is just so much we don’t know.

One way to try to gauge how a coach is received by their players is the team’s willingness to shapeshift their roles and continue to play hard despite being pushed by their leaders. And even when I questioned Brown in that aforementioned piece, this component was always obvious. Here is what I wrote after their Game 3 loss:

“I also appreciate that Brown isn’t beholden to his high-priced players. There were numerous times during the regular season when Towns would not close games, as Brown felt he was not getting enough from him. In Game 3 against the Hawks, Mikal Bridges was limited to five minutes in the second half after an uninspired first-half performance (he also did not close the game down the stretch).”

Towns and Bridges have faced a ton of criticism since coming to The Big Apple for varying reasons. Instead of simply letting them play through it, Brown challenged them with late-game benchings, and both of them have responded in a positive manner, elevating their performances over this seven-game stretch.

Jordan Clarkson is another great example of this. A career microwave scorer, Clarkson has reinvented himself into a do-everything scrapper – posting his best Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus since 2022 (per Dunks & Threes). This is despite a one-month stretch from early-February/early-March where the veteran hardly factored into the rotation.

This is also the best explanation I can muster for their defensive renaissance. Yes, it helps that Mitchell Robinson (the team’s best paint protector) has been more available than he was last season and that they are concluding possessions with a defensive rebound at a higher rate than they did in 2025 (2nd in defensive rebounding rate this year, 19th last season).

But, at the end of the day, their schemes aren’t all that different. Guys are just more bought-in to rotating, communicating, and scrambling all over the floor.

It also helps that Brown has been more willing to trust his bench (and his starters have been more willing to embrace the extra rest). After placing 15th in bench scoring last postseason, the Knicks now sit at fifth.

This has nothing to do with defense, but it is evidence that the second unit is getting more run, meaning everyone is fresher and can exert more energy toward the defensive side of the ball.

Is This The Knicks Best Chance At The Title?

Simple Rating System is a one-number metric created by Basketball Reference that combines strength of schedule and average point differential to help quantify how good a team really is. The Knicks’ SRS this season (6.05) is the second-best the franchise has tallied since 1973, trailing only their 1993-94 campaign (6.48), when they infamously fell just one game short of the NBA title.

But even that group lacked the two-way balance (they were 16th in offensive rating and 1st in defensive rating) that this iteration of the team currently wields.

FanDuel currently gives the Knicks the third-best odds to take home the championship (+650, an implied probability of 13.3%). However, I think that number may be underselling their chances, as the two teams ahead of them (the Thunder and San Antonio Spurs) will have to beat up on each other before going to the Finals.

Meanwhile, regardless of who wins the Pistons/Cavaliers series, the Knicks will (likely) be facing the weakest of the four teams in the conference finals.

However, for all the reasons we’ve cited, this Knicks team is different than the one that came up short last season, meaning that the Knicks are closer to ending their championship drought than they have been in quite some time.

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