How have the Knicks fared against the NBA's best teams this season?
New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson dribbles the ball as he's defended by San Antonio Spurs forward Harrison Barnes in the second half of an NBA basketball game at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Before the Knicks started what might be the most imposing stretch of their schedule Sunday afternoon, Mike Brown was asked his thoughts about the upcoming series of games.
“You know our schedule better than me,” he said with a laugh. “That’s too many games for me to think about. I just take it one game at a time. I know we’ve got San Antonio at 1 o’clock on Sunday, just trying to figure out how we’re going to prepare to play them.”
Brown was trying to remain pointed only toward the next game as the most important game. That one-game-at-a-time approach is no different from former Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau. Thibodeau routinely stressed the importance of every game, never treating a game against the best in the NBA differently from a lottery-bound team.
The Knicks got past the first game of this five-game stretch by overwhelming the Spurs, 114-89, limiting them to a season-low point total and even making Victor Wembanyama look, well, human.
Now they head out on the road to face the Raptors on Tuesday, return home for a back-to-back meeting with the Thunder on Wednesday and then begin a five-game road trip in Denver, followed by the Lakers.
If that ends the five-game stretch of playoff-positioned teams, it doesn’t end the road trip. A back-to-back meeting with the Clippers follows the Lakers game before the Knicks finish with games against the Utah Jazz and Indiana Pacers, teams focused on draft positioning.
While the Knicks (39-22) are one game behind last season’s pace, they have fared better against the best teams in the NBA than they did last season.
The Knicks are 14-9 against the top six teams in each conference — 15-9 if you include the game that disappears from the schedule and results, a win over the Spurs to capture the NBA Cup in December.
They are 5-2 against the best in the Western Conference and 9-7 against the top six in the Eastern Conference. They are 24-17 if you add in the teams currently seventh through 10th in each conference.
Last season, the Knicks were 10-20 against the top six teams in each conference and 15-8 against the teams that earned play-in spots, ranking 7-10 in the standings.
Maybe none of this means anything. After all, the Knicks were 0-4 against each of the two top teams in the East last season, Cleveland and Boston, and then knocked the defending champion Celtics out of the playoffs in the second round while Cleveland was eliminated in the same round by Indiana.
The Knicks started this season by putting aside those regular-season struggles and beating Cleveland and Boston in succession. But the Knicks not only are 0-3 against Detroit, the front-runner in the East, but have been dominated in each of those games.
So beating San Antonio — a team that had won 11 straight games — means something, at least to the Knicks. Right now, the Pistons are the only top-six team in either conference against whom they have a losing record this season.
They have 38- and 31-point losses to Detroit to figure out, but they also have this 25-point win over San Antonio, a 23-point win at Minnesota and a 49-point win at Philadelphia.
“I think it’s just another example of where we can be defensively,” Josh Hart said after the Knicks shook off a slow start with a 26-2 run that allowed them to run away with Sunday’s win.
“We have to do that on a nightly basis. Now, we know it’s all about getting better every day and be the best team we can be going into the playoffs. We have to continue to build off of this and not have lulls at this point. It can’t be up and down. It has to be a steady climb.”
Wednesday’s game is the Knicks’ first this season against the Thunder, the top team in the Western Conference, a team they were 0-2 against last season.
Maybe this meeting in the middle of a grueling stretch will tell the Knicks something about where they are. Or maybe, like last season, it won’t reveal itself until the postseason.
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
