It’s easy to feel down as a New York Knicks fan right now.
The Knicks just suffered their third consecutive blowout loss against their top competitor for the Eastern Conference title, the Detroit Pistons. It completes a season sweep in which New York was outscored by 84 points in three games (-28.0 average).
Between now and a potential playoff rematch with Detroit, there isn’t much the Knicks can do to build more optimism that they’re capable of winning a series against a team that they were not remotely competitive against for 12 straight quarters.
It might feel like all hope is lost.
But don’t throw in those orange-and-blue towels just yet, Knicks fans.
Here are three reasons to stay optimistic about New York’s title hopes.
1. Remember Boston?
The Knicks just overcame this exact scenario one year ago.
Despite winning 51 regular season games, there was limited faith about the Knicks’ ability to go deep in the playoffs due to their monumental struggles against elite teams. The Knicks went 0-10 against the 60-plus-win Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Oklahoma City Thunder, and they generally weren’t even close, losing by an average of 16.8 points.
In the semifinals, the Knicks ran into one of those teams, the Celtics. Boston had completed a four-game regular season sweep of New York, winning by an average of 16.3 points. Across the two games in Boston, the Knicks never held a lead past two minutes into the game.
You all know what happened next.
The Knicks registered back-to-back 20-point comebacks in Boston to open the series, taking a 2-0 series lead. They handled business from there, eliminating the Celtics in six games.
Is this to say that the Knicks will definitely do this again in 2026, should they run into the Pistons? Absolutely not.
But it shows that such a turnaround is certainly possible for this team.
There is no way to sugarcoat it: The Knicks’ one-sided sweep at the hands of Detroit is extremely concerning. Nobody is denying that. Still, we have seen evidence from this exact core of Knicks players that the regular season and the playoffs do not necessarily correlate.
Maybe the Pistons will beat the Knicks just as badly in the playoffs.
Maybe they will be shell-shocked the same way Boston was.
The 2025 playoffs gave us every reason to believe that both scenarios are equally plausible.
2. The sample isn’t damning enough to count the Knicks out
Last night’s loss was brutal—there are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. The Knicks had home-court advantage and were nearly at full strength (sans Miles McBride), while the Pistons were down their top two bigs. New York was favored by 8.5 points. Yet, the Knicks were manhandled.
The other two losses, though, had asterisks.
In the Jan. 5 loss at Detroit, the Knicks were without Josh Hart, whose presence has had a major positive impact on the team this year (21-8 record when he starts). They also still had Guerschon Yabusele and Jordan Clarkson in the rotation, two players who have had a significant negative impact on the court. Yabusele was traded away for pennies, while Clarkson’s recent removal from the rotation coincided with much-improved play by the team.
Additionally, rookie forward Mohamed Diawara had yet to break into a significant rotation role; he only played five minutes in that game. Diawara has recently carved out a larger role for the team and was a key piece of their pre-All-Star turnaround.
In the Feb. 6 defeat, New York was without Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, and Miles McBride, rendering the defeat relatively meaningless from a forward-looking evaluation standpoint.
Granted, Detroit was without All-Star center Jalen Duren in all three games. Still, it is fair to note that the Knicks’ lineup in those first two losses looked a lot different than the one we will see in the spring, should they be fully healthy.
This does not excuse how poorly the Knicks played. It’s not as if they lost on buzzer-beaters; they were outscored by a combined 69 points across the two games in Detroit. That is downright embarrassing and unavoidably concerning, no matter how you slice it.
Nonetheless, the Knicks have shown as much as any NBA franchise that one simple tweak to a lineup can be all it takes to turn a franchise around. From the Josh Hart trade to the OG Anunoby trade, they have displayed in recent years that one player’s presence on the roster could trigger a night-and-day shift for the entire team.
So, it stands to reason that Knicks fans shouldn’t use the three-game regular season series against Detroit as cold-hard evidence that New York cannot win a seven-game playoff series with the Pistons. Ultimately, last night’s loss was the only defeat to Detroit in which we can say the Knicks had absolutely no excuses.
Does this mean that the three-game output against Detroit isn’t concerning, given how lopsided each game was? Of course not. But it does mean that we should leave open the possibility that whenever the Knicks play Detroit again, their lineup could be much stronger than the ones that took the floor in two of the three defeats.
One full-strength loss, as ugly as that one may have been, isn’t enough to preemptively decide a playoff series.
3. The Knicks could be a better team by the spring
From last April to today, the Pistons have leapfrogged the Knicks. Detroit took a massive leap from good to elite, while the Knicks have remained stagnant at “very good”.
It isn’t entirely surprising. Detroit has a young core; five of their top eight players in minutes last season were under 24 years old. Those players are better today than they were last year. The Knicks’ core is largely composed of players who are firmly in their primes and have little room for development.
Right now, the Pistons are unquestionably the better team. However, there are reasons to believe that New York can close the gap between now and the teams’ next meeting.
It is worth considering that the Knicks are still implementing a new system under a new head coach, while the Pistons have plenty of continuity in their second year under J.B. Bickerstaff, with most of the same core rotation players. That leaves more growth potential for New York between now and the playoffs than for Detroit.
Now, is this to say that Mike Brown should be excused for how disjointed the team still looks in late February? Definitely not. It shouldn’t be hard to draw up more pick-and-pops for a shooter as talented as Karl-Anthony Towns, or to tell Mikal Bridges to stop shooting 15-foot fadeaways and take a layup for once (ironman streak be damned).
Still, it can take time for a team to truly come into its own under a new head coach, as much as it might seem easy to make changes like the ones we alluded to. While the Knicks’ transition should be accelerated by the presence of a veteran core that played together last year (it’s not as if this should take years), it isn’t out of the question that Brown’s vision for the peak form of New York basketball might not come to fruition until late in the season.
Plus, in last night’s loss, the Knicks gave critical minutes to two brand-new rotation players who are still unfamiliar with the team: Jose Alvarado and Jeremy Sochan. The hope is that by playoff time, at least one of these players can emerge as a legit difference-maker in the rotation, particularly on defense.
Above anything else, the Knicks are still without Miles McBride, and it cannot be understated how big a loss he is.
As much as it may seem like a reach to say the Knicks’ title hopes hinge on a bench player, it truly might be the case. McBride remains the most impactful player on the Knicks’ roster according to on-off net rating.
According to Databallr, the Knicks are 6.4 points per 100 possessions better with McBride on the court (+11.4) than off (+5.0). That is more than three points ahead of any other Knick.
McBride only played in the first of the three games against Detroit. In that game, over 25 minutes with McBride on the court, the Knicks were outscored by only three points. Over 23 minutes without him, they were outscored by 28.
Things look bleak right now, but there are many reasons to believe a better Knicks team will take the floor if/when they meet the Pistons again. With more time to refine Brown’s offensive/defensive systems, more time to acclimate Alvarado and Sochan, and, hopefully, a healthy McBride, the Knicks have an opportunity to use the next two months to bulk themselves up for a rematch.
It would be delusional to claim Knicks fans should still be optimistic about the team’s outlook against Detroit, but it would also be excessively pessimistic to give up all hope.
