The New York Knicks are playing like royalty as they come into the Queen City.
New York will put the longest active winning streak in the Eastern Conference on the line on Thursday night when it tips off an intriguing road trip against the Charlotte Hornets. It’s the opener of a four-game road trip, one where all but one of the coming opponents sits in some form of postseason contention.
The Knicks are fresh off five games within metropolitan borders, capping that stretch off with a 121-116 win over the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden.
Jalen Brunson scored just under half of his 32 points in the final period, one that saw the Knicks keep a slim yet lasting lead against Jose Alvarado’s former employers. OG Anunoby and Karl-Anthony Towns each contributed 21 points, with the latter also pulling down 14 rebounds.
Charlotte has drastically improved since their last date with the Knicks on Dec. 3: since falling to 6-16 after a five-point loss at MSG, Charlotte has gone 32-19, good for the seventh-best record in the NBA in that span.
The Hornets enter with a formidable four-game winning streak, the latest entry being a 134-90 shellacking of Sacramento on Tuesday. Charlotte enters Thursday’s play two games out of the sixth and final automatic Eastern Conference playoff spot.
This will be the third meeting between the Knicks and Hornets this season, and one more is scheduled for the final day of the regular season on April 12. Towns had 35 points and 18 rebounds in the prior meeting, while Brunson put up 33 points in the original showing, a 129-101 New York triumph as part of NBA Cup group play.
The Knicks will officially clinch a 2026 NBA playoff spot with a win on Thursday night.
What: New York Knicks (48-25) @ Charlotte Hornets (38-34)
Where: Spectrum Center, Charlotte, NC
When/Watch: Thursday, 7 p.m. ET, MSG/NBA TV
Who’s Favored: CHA -1.5
Keep An Eye On: Mohamed Diawara
As a clinch comes close, the Knicks have a couple of quandaries to figure out before the postseason, namely when it comes to their second unit: Landry Shamet continues to sit out, but Miles McBride is reportedly nearing a return.
That could create a situation in these final hours for Diawara, who continues to get consistent minutes as Shamet, Josh Hart, and others have been forced to miss time. It felt like we saw the last of Diawara when he played just five minutes in the St. Patrick’s Day massacre of Indiana, but he has averaged 16 minutes in the last three, continuing to showcase a sterling outside ability at over 62 percent with an extra point on the line in that span.
Even that might not be enough to convince the Knicks to employ the rookie over healthy veterans, but there’s still a prime opportunity for Diawara to make a statement for both now and later.
Hornet to Watch: Moussa Diabate
Diawara’s fellow Frenchman Diabate holds a bit of a cold place in the hearts of Knicks fans, as a 2024 preseason encounter with Shamet delayed the latter’s metropolitan debut. More recently, however, he’s been making a name for himself amidst Charlotte’s buzz, even as the headlines continue to shift toward LaMelo Ball, Kon Knueppel, and Brandon Miller.
The teal depth star will prove to be a formidable challenge for the Knicks’ primary paint prowlers Towns and Mitchell Robinson: amidst the Hornets’ continued March surge (8-3), Diabate ranks 12th in the league in net rating among me with at least 10 appearances and 15 minutes a game and he’s fourth in offensive rebounds percentage among that same group.
Charlotte’s rise on the Eastern leaderboard matches Diabate’s leap into the starting five: the Hornets have a 26-12 record when he hears his name called prior to tip-off this year.
They Said It
“Good teams win games that they’re supposed to. Obviously, anyone in the league can beat you on any given day. … It feels good. Obviously, we got a tough nine or 10 games left to finish the season. It’s all in preparation.”—Hart on the Knicks’ winning streak (h/t Jared Schwartz, New York Post)
“I’ve never been on a team this dangerous. It can be a back-and-forth game, and then you hit one run, and you look up, and you’re up 20, and then you’re up 30… I think we’re starting to hold those leads when you do get them and continue to build upon.”—Coby White on the Hornets (h/t SleeperHornets on X)
Prediction
The Knicks feasted on junk food, but now the road gets a little bumpy: after the swarm in Charlotte, emphatic interconference tests await in Oklahoma City and Houston. That doesn’t even begin to acknowledge the surging Hornets, who clearly aren’t the same team that the Knicks faced in December.
New York has proven fully capable of holding its own against the league’s best, even if they’ve become somewhat notorious for playing up or down to their competition. They need to take advantage of as many conventionally winnable opportunities as they can.
For the time being, they clearly have the defensive advantage to work with that, at least against a Charlotte group that’s learning how to conduct itself in more prime opportunities.
