On the surface, the 2026 New York Knicks might not seem like a more dangerous playoff threat than the 2025 edition.
Sixty-eight games into the year, the Knicks are 43-25, the exact same record they held at this point last year.
The Knicks are currently slotted in the East’s third seed, the exact same position they finished with last year.
They were swept by the East’s No. 1 seed… just as they were last year.
These surface-level facts paint the picture of a Knicks team that has not developed into a greater title threat over the last 365 days, despite the head coaching switch from Tom Thibodeau to Mike Brown and multiple roster changes.
But that could not be further from the truth.
When you dig beneath the surface, it becomes abundantly clear that the 2026 Knicks are poised to be a much more intimidating playoff threat than they were in 2025, when they came within six victories of an NBA title.
And the rest of the league should be terrified.
Here are five reasons the Knicks are better equipped for a championship run than last year.
1. Significant leap in net rating
Yes, the Knicks’ 43-25 record is identical to the mark they held at this point last year.
In terms of net rating, though, the Knicks have grown into a significantly better team.
Per NBA.com, the 2024-25 Knicks finished eighth in the NBA with a +4.0 net rating. This year, the Knicks’ net rating has jumped by over two points to +6.4, ranking fifth in the league.
Ultimately, the sport is about winning and losing, so the improved net rating won’t mean much if the Knicks cannot translate it to more victories. However, the whole point of analyzing teams via their net rating is that it is a more predictive metric than win percentage.
By looking at a team’s performance over thousands upon thousands of possessions, rather than just wins and losses over 82 games, we get a stronger sense of the team’s true quality and, therefore, their likelihood of out-winning another team over the course of a seven-game series.
The Knicks have a “Simple Rating System” (point differential adjusted for strength of schedule) of +6.1, tied for third-best in franchise history. It is only the fourth time they have had an SRS of +6.0 or better. The other three times? Knicks fans know these teams well: 1970 (+8.4, NBA champions), 1973 (+6.1, NBA champions), and 1994 (+6.5, Eastern Conference champions).
So, even if the Knicks’ current win percentage does not put them in all-time prestigious territory, their net rating does. For that reason, the Knicks’ sizable jump in net rating is a clear signal that the team has taken a leap from “very good” to “legitimate title contender,” even if the win-loss record does not reflect it just yet.
A Knicks team outscoring its opponents by 6.4 points per 100 possessions has a much better chance of winning a seven-game series than a Knicks team outscoring its opponents by 4.0 points per 100 possessions—simple as that.
2. Stronger defense
The root of the Knicks’ improved net rating is their defense. That’s a tremendous sign going into April, because, as every NBA fan knows, intensity and physicality ramp up in the playoffs, while the scoring goes down. If you can’t defend, you can’t win gritty games in the spring.
Last year, the Knicks finished just 13th in defensive rating (113.3), which was only seventh-best in the Eastern Conference playoff field.
So far this season, the Knicks have skyrocketed to fifth in defensive rating (111.8), including third among East playoff teams.
In fact, the Knicks’ 2.4-point jump in overall net rating (+4.0 to +6.4) can be completely explained by their defensive improvement. According to Basketball Reference, their defense in 2024-25 was just 0.2 points better than league average, while this year’s defense is 2.6 points better than the league average.
The Knicks are playing outstanding defense as a team. The most promising part of their defensive excellence is that the stars are bought in.
Karl-Anthony Towns, typically maligned for his defense, has emerged as one of the league’s best defenders over the past couple of months.
When the Knicks lost to the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals, it was mainly because of their defense. New York allowed Indiana to accrue an offensive rating of 117.8 over the course of the series, even better than their regular season mark of 116.5, which was ninth-best in the league. That type of defense just won’t cut it in May.
This year’s Knicks team is much better equipped to hold elite offenses in check.
3. Better performance against top teams
Yes, the Detroit Pistons swept the Knicks in dominant fashion. The way they match up against Detroit is a legitimate concern that Mike Brown will likely have to confront at some point if the Knicks are to make it through the East.
With that being said, the Knicks have actually been quite good against the rest of the NBA’s top teams. That’s a great sign, as last year’s Knicks team was utterly demolished by not just their top competitors in the East, but nearly every elite team.
The Knicks currently have the fifth-best record in the NBA, the same placement they finished with last year. However, they have been much more competitive against the teams above them.
In 2024-25, the Knicks went 1-11 with an average point differential of -14.5 against the league’s top four teams: Oklahoma City, Cleveland, Boston, and Houston.
In 2025-26, including the NBA Cup Final, the Knicks are 4-6 with an average point differential of -2.7 against the league’s top four teams: Oklahoma City, Detroit, San Antonio, and Boston. That is a massive improvement, even with the three-game Detroit sweep included.
The Knicks still have one game apiece left against Boston and Oklahoma City, giving them an opportunity to enter the playoffs with a .500 record against top-five teams.
Overall, the Knicks are 24-19 against .500-plus teams, sixth-best in the NBA. It’s a considerable improvement over their 15-23 record last year, which was 13th in the league.
New York’s quality performance against the league’s best teams is an indicator that they are better prepared for playoff basketball than last year. It also validates their net rating, supporting the argument that they have improved as an overall team, even if the win-loss progress has not occurred just yet.
4. Hotter entering the playoffs
As we discussed on Friday, the Knicks have a golden opportunity to not only enter the playoffs hotter than last year, but also as the hottest team in the league. They continued on that trajectory with their win over the Indiana Pacers.
Last year’s Knicks team went just 11-11 over its final 22 games after a 40-20 start. Their +2.3 net rating over the final 22 games ranked 15th in the NBA and a daunting 10th in the East.
Today, the Knicks are 18-7 over their last 25 games, the fifth-best record in the NBA over that span. Meanwhile, their +12.3 net rating leads the NBA.
Even after last night’s game in Indiana, the Knicks still have the league’s fifth-easiest remaining schedule (.460 win percentage). They are primed to enter the playoffs with perhaps the NBA’s best record and best net rating over the final 39 games of the season, which is nearly a half-season’s worth.
New York sleepwalked into the 2025 playoffs and still got more than halfway to a Larry O’Brien Trophy. Imagine what this core can do with a year of experience under their belt and a trail of scorching hot momentum behind them.
5. Deeper
During last year’s Knicks playoff run, the team had to work around an extremely thin depth chart.
For the most part, Tom Thibodeau ran a seven-man rotation, with Miles McBride and Mitchell Robinson being the only players getting routine minutes off the bench. Cameron Payne and Landry Shamet occasionally received spot minutes, but both often received DNPs.
Throughout the 2025-26 season, Mike Brown has been more willing to dig into his bench than Thibodeau, who was married to his starting lineup and will go down in infamy for the exorbitant minutes he would give to his star players. Brown’s willingness to use his bench will pay dividends in the playoffs, helping to keep the Knicks’ starters fresher for the fourth quarter.
However, using the bench more often would not be a positive for New York’s chances of winning if the bench players were net-negatives. The good news is that the Knicks’ bench has emerged as a significant boon for New York this year. They have been able to discover that thanks to Brown’s experimental approach to the regular season.
This year, the Knicks are poised to enter the playoffs with four net-positive bench players they can trust to play double-digit minutes: McBride, Robinson, Shamet, and Mohamed Diawara.
All four players are upgrades over their 2025 counterparts.
McBride, if fully healthy, has developed into a better player than he was last year. Before he was sidelined, McBride was posting career-highs in points per game (12.9) and three-point percentage (42.0%) this season. Comparatively, he averaged 5.8 points on 37.3% three-point shooting in last year’s playoffs.
Per Databallr, McBride is still the Knicks’ team leader in on-off net rating (garbage time-adjusted) at +7.3. If he is back on the court and at the height of his powers, he will be a major difference-maker for a Knicks team that has already been taking significant steps forward without him.
Robinson is healthy thanks to a year-long load management routine, and as a result, he is playing arguably the best basketball of his career. He is snagging a career-high and league-leading 16.3 rebounds per 36 minutes, an improvement of 3.7 over his previous high, which is saying a lot, considering Robinson has always been known as a top-notch rebounder.
The improvement for Robinson has occurred on both ends. He is grabbing career-highs in both offensive rebounds per 36 minutes (8.1) and defensive rebounds per 36 minutes (8.2). To boot, he is starting to get more involved in the team’s offense, as he is even tossing in a career-best 1.7 assists per 36 minutes.
Robinson was already a massive difference-maker for the Knicks in last year’s playoffs, as they were 8.9 points per 100 possessions better when he was on the court. The fact that he has only become a better player since then is terrifying for the Knicks’ upcoming playoff opponents.
Shamet has established himself as a staple in the Knicks’ rotation after being in Thibodeau’s doghouse last year. In 23.1 minutes per game for New York this season, Shamet is playing solid perimeter defense and knocking down 40% of his threes on his way to 9.9 points per game. Even his inside game has opened up, as his 58.8% two-point shooting trails only Mitchell Robinson on the team, a pleasant surprise.
We’ve already seen the impact that Shamet can make in the playoffs. After opening the Eastern Conference Finals with two DNPs, Thibodeau turned to Shamet in Game 3, sparking a series-saving win with his +12 plus-minus in 11 minutes.
Ultimately, the Knicks outscored Indiana by 21 across Shamet’s 52 minutes (+19.4 per 48 minutes) in four games, compared to their -32 margin across 241 minutes (-6.4 per 48 minutes) in the series with Shamet on the bench. It was too little, too late, but his impact was noticeable enough to inspire confidence that New York may have won the series if Thibodeau had utilized Shamet from the beginning.
Finally, you have Diawara, whose impact as a 20-year-old, second-round rookie has been astonishing. Diawara is knocking down 39% of his treys on excellent volume; his 7.7 three-point attempts per 36 minutes trail only Shamet (8.3) and McBride (8.9) on the team. His lengthy frame has also been impactful on defense.
Diawara has earned Brown’s trust lately, as he is averaging 16.0 minutes per game over his last 17 appearances. He can absolutely be the Knicks’ ninth man off the bench for a few spot minutes to help buy some extra rest for the starters without tanking the scoreboard.
After filtering out garbage time, the Knicks are 1.2 points better per 100 possessions with Diawara on the court than off, per Databallr, which should easily secure him a role in the playoff rotation. Last year’s team sorely lacked a reserve wing with enough three-point shooting ability and defensive length to adequately fill in for OG Anunoby and/or Mikal Bridges.
To summarize, we are looking at the possibility of the Knicks’ playoff rotation boasting an improved McBride, an improved Robinson, Shamet, and Diawara, compared to essentially just McBride and Robinson last year.
Toss in two tremendous “break in case of emergency” options in Jose Alvarado (for a defensive spark) and Jordan Clarkson (for an offensive spark), and the Knicks’ depth is truly night-and-day compared to last year’s playoffs.
Buy stock in the Knicks while you can
On paper, you see a 43-25 record. It paints an identical picture to the one we saw at this time a year ago.
Take the picture off the wall, though, and you see a hidden tunnel that has been slowly carved out for 53 years, except, instead of Andy Dufresne’s freedom on the other side, it’s the Canyon of Heroes.
Looking past the win-loss record is essential for this Knicks team as they prepare for the playoffs. Peek underneath the hood, and this is what you see:
- A significantly better overall team based on net rating, to the point of being championship-caliber.
- A stronger defense.
- Far better competitiveness against the league’s top teams.
- The potential for significantly more momentum entering the playoffs.
- A far deeper rotation.
Something special is brewing in the Mecca. Perhaps, though, it can only be seen by those bold enough to do a little more research than a mere Google search of the Knicks’ record.
