The New York Knicks' eight-game winning streak has produced some dominant digits as they seek their first championship since 1973.
Welcome to New York. It's been waiting for you...53 years, to be precise.
The New York Knicks are closer than ever to being king of the hill, top of the heap in the NBA for the first time in over five decades: the Knicks are currently engaged in an eight-game winning streak that has stolen the show in the NBA Playoffs' latter stages.
The latest addition to that tally was a 115-104 overtime escape from New York against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals' opener. It was a showcase that saw New York erase a 22-point deficit in the fourth quarter, the second-largest in the Association's play-by-play era, which began in 1997.
That's not the only comeback that the Knicks have made this postseason: just about a month ago, New York trailed by a 2-1 margin in its debut series against the Atlanta Hawks, leading many hardwood jesters to put their fingers on the joke triggers that have followed Manhattan for so long. The streak has flipped the script, as the Knicks now have their best, undeniable chance at a championship since their last such banner-raising in 1973.
With the Knicks seeking to extend their streak and inch one spot closer to the NBA Finals on Thursday night (8 p.m. ET, ESPN), Ballislife has compiled six noteworthy Knick numbers/dominant digits accumulated during this span, which began on April 25 ...
(All stats accurate as of entering play on 5/21/26)
11.6
Plus/minus is usually a stat better reserved for the Knicks' blue, icy roommates at MSG, but the impact of several metropolitan x-factors is on display through the category: Tom Thibodeau's otherwise successful tenure is often remembered for an overreliance on his primary men, but head coach Mike Brown has been more generous with his minutes distribution as the playoff run gets deeper.
Chief among them is backup center Mitchell Robinson, whose return from an unpleasant encounter with Joel Embiid during the 2024 playoffs has raised the Knicks to another level. Despite opponents' attempts to stifle New York's offensive momentum with a "Bewitch-a-Mitch" strategy that's supposed to take advantage of his poor free-throw shooting, New York is an average of plus-11.6 on the score during his minutes in this stretch, which has seen a larger Robinson presence after Brown acquiesced to increased fan demands to see him share the floor with All-Star starter Karl-Anthony Towns.
.@WindhorstESPN is right. John Starks almost smacked Evan Mobley while he was fist pumping after that game-tying Landry Shamet 3 in the 4th. https://t.co/zW9h1VGLOy pic.twitter.com/9CMiJmWcUb
— Mike Vorkunov (@MikeVorkunov) May 20, 2026
Robinson is one of four postseason bench players to reach double-figures in the plus/minus department, next to Miles McBride (plus-10.7, third as he and Robinson sandwich Alex Caruso). The backup point guard filled in admirably on both ends during a starting stretch in the absence of OG Anunoby, who endured a hamstring injury during the opening series against the Atlanta Hawks.
Further differentiating himself from Thibodeau, Brown has made sure his subs adhere to the "stay ready" trope that follows second unit men everywhere: he has routinely switched between playing mid-season acquisition Jose Alvarado and Jordan Clarkson, who has recovered well from a mid-winter exile. Landry Shamet, a last-second roster addition after the abrupt retirement of Malcolm Brogdon shortly before this year's tip-off, delivered the equalizer and the dagger in the incredible comeback against Cleveland on Tuesday.
19
The Knicks are the 19th team in NBA playoff history to post an eight-game winning streak in a single postseason. Defending champion Oklahoma City, which is competing for a Finals berth on the other side of the bracket, was another recent entrant on this list, though their tally came to an end thanks to a Tuesday night double overtime fall to San Antonio.
Intriguingly, Brown had a role in a couple of prior such streaks: he was at the helm for most of the 15-game tear that opened the Golden State Warriors' 2017 title trek (taking over for an ill Steve Kerr) and helped oversee a similar output in Cleveland eight years earlier.
Interestingly, only eight of the prior teams went on to win a championship after embarking on such a streak, the last being the aforementioned 2017 Warriors. Brown himself helped stop the list from growing as a San Antonio assistant, watching the Spurs cut down the New Jersey Nets in 2003.
31.5
Two days before calendars flipped to 2024, the Knicks made an apparent resolution to get tougher on both sides of the ball by trading homegrown faces RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley to the Toronto Raptors in exchange for Anunoby. Unlike the many instantly-broken vows to go to the gym, both sides have kept their respective ends of their shared bargains.
Over the last eight games, Anunoby has posted a net rating of 31.5, which is good for the best among all playoff participants with a mere minimum of 15 minutes played. New York was able to admirably hold the fort when he missed the last two stanzas of the Philadelphia series with a hamstring injury, but there's no denying they've been even more dangerous when he's on the floor.
Anunoby's boosted shooting efforts have been a godsend: a career 37 percent man from deep, he hit 10-of-18 (over 55 percent) as the Knicks picked up the first four pieces of their comeback. While it took a while for him to rediscover his Garden legs upon his return in the ECF opener, Anunoby scored nine of the Knicks' 14 overtime points to close things out. It's hardly a shock to see Anunoby rank so high defensively in this stretch (even if he's just ahead of mainstream standout Victor Wembanyama among men with a minimum 15 minutes and three games played), but he's also third on offense in the same stat, lumped together with Bridges and Jalen Brunson.
61.8
A certain Villanova Wildcat, he of two national championship rings and a metropolitan arrival that caused quite the hullabaloo, has come up clutch in the Knicks' recent endeavors.
Mikal Bridges, of course.
Any metropolitan consternation about involving a multitude of draft picks when negotiating for Bridges' services likely lies solely in Brooklyn. The former Net has posted a 61.8 net rating in the fourth quarters of the last eight games, proving to be equally clutch as Brunson in perhaps a more muted setting. Bridges has appeared in just four such periods thanks to one-sided margins, but has been reliable for a clutch shot or two when things are close. When a mini-Cleveland surge threatened to render the comeback null, Bridges hit a couple of clutch triples that kept the Garden in tune, further eating away at the Cavs' will.
WHAT A SHOT pic.twitter.com/Eg5eAqzP5L
— DJ Zullo (@DJAceNBA) May 20, 2026
The debate over the fateful trade may not truly be over until the moment Bridges adds a Knicks ring to his Villanova jewelry, but there's no denying that April showers (perhaps created by the combined tears of Knicks and Nets fans) have brought about May flowers. Bridges etched himself into Knicks lore at this time last year when he placed the cherry on two comeback sundaes in Boston with clutch steals that busted Beantown.
76.9
Captaincy complaints in The Bronx center on the clutch shortcomings of a certain New York Yankees outfielder. You'll find no such qualms in Manhattan.
There's saving the best for last, and then there's what the Knicks captain is putting up: it's impressive enough that Brunson, the original winner of the NBA's newly-introduced Clutch Player of the Year Award, is averaging over 11 points in five fourth-quarter appearances since April 25. He's fifth in overall points in the span, which is downright incredible considering he's sat out three fourth periods due to massive metropolitan leads (more on that in a second).
"Can't get to the championship with a small guard" was the narrative. Jalen Brunson is three wins away from leading the Knicks to the Finals.
— Ball Don't Stop (@balldontstop) May 20, 2026
Stats don't measure heart, skill, composure, feel for the moment and killer mentality.
🎥 @ClutchNBAx https://t.co/PdqEzDCB2Z pic.twitter.com/781Nthn4En
But Brunson's incredible success rate in the frames, sitting just under 77 percent, shows a heightened basketball IQ via incredible shot selection, one that shows he's playing "hero ball" on a more necessary and consistent basis. Such a shot percentage would be the second-best among fourth-quarter playoff participants (min. 25 attempts) since 2023, behind only current Boston Celtic and relative paint camper Luka Garza.
196
The Knicks certainly hope that the concept of good teams winning and great teams covering continues to ring true. Even when they fell behind by 22 in the Game 1 classic against Cleveland, New York covered a 6.5-point spread with a 14-3 breakout in overtime that limited the Cavs to a single Max Strus triple.
New York has left little doubt on scoreboards at both the Garden and beyond, posting a point differential of plus-196 over this eight-game winning streak. That's the largest tally in NBA history over an eight-game span for both the postseason and regular season, besting the prior March mark of a 1972 Los Angeles Lakers team that denied Walt "Clyde" Frazier, Willis Reed, and more a third championship during the Knicks' dominant early 70s stretch.
If the Knicks want to keep the streak rolling, they'll have to beat the Cavs by 14 on Thursday, which would pass the 1973 Milwaukee Bucks for the best-ever nine-game differential.
Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags
