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Mike Brown wanted to finish the regular season with the best record in the NBA. He wanted to have the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Brown said falling short of those goals was “disappointing.”
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But Brown and the Knicks put up some other impressive numbers this season.
They had the franchise’s third-highest SRS, which is a measurement that accounts for point differential and strength of schedule.
The 2025-26 Knicks finished the season with an SRS of 6.23. They trail only the 1969-70 and 1993-94 teams and are right ahead of the 1972-73 team. Two of those teams won the NBA Finals and the third reached the NBA Finals — not bad company to be in.
Brown’s Knicks finished the season with the fourth-best offensive rating in the league. They ranked 7th overall in defense and had the fifth-best net rating.
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“I wish I could have figured some things out a little sooner than what I did, but we’ve had more ups than downs,” Brown said Sunday.
“….Going into the playoffs, we feel pretty good where we are offensively and defensively as a group,” he added. “We feel connected. I feel like everybody on the team has sacrificed in one way, shape or form. You need that from your group in order to have some success. Our guys compete, and at this point in the season, I feel like the guys really believe, not just in what we’re trying to do but in each other.”
That belief is the result of a strong finish to the regular season. The Knicks snapped an 0-5 stretch against teams above .500 with wins over Atlanta and Boston last week.
The pairing of Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns on offense looked as good as it has all season in those two games.
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Of course, Brown and the rest of the organization will ultimately be judged on what happens in the playoffs.
But Brown’s Knicks seem to be in a good place entering their first-round matchup against the Hawks. They’ve shown over the course of 82 games that they’re one of the top teams in the league. They’ve battled through rough stretches of the season, questions about the fit of Towns, the play of Bridges and a myriad…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/where-knicks-stand-heading-matchup-040828798.html
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Publish date : 2026-04-13 04:08:00
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