The NBA Finals won’t begin until June 3, meaning the schedule will accomplish what the Atlanta Hawks, Philadelphia 76ers and Cleveland Cavaliers couldn’t manage in recent weeks.
It will stop the New York Knicks from winning.
At least for several days.
The Knicks have secured their spot in the NBA Finals, arriving there with one of the most impressive runs in league history. New York completed a four-game sweep of the Eastern Conference finals Monday evening, defeating the Cavaliers 130-93 and pushing their winning streak to 11 games.
Knicks coach Mike Brown gave all praise to his players.
“They’re just great, great human beings and they’re obviously fantastic basketball players,” Brown said.
The Knicks defeated the Hawks in six games during Round 1, then swept both Philly in Round 2 and Cleveland for the Eastern Conference championship.
Now, the Knicks await either Oklahoma City or San Antonio. The Western Conference title won’t be decided until Thursday at the earliest, and whichever team wins that Thunder-Spurs matchup will host the Knicks for Game 1 of the NBA Finals next week.
The Knicks, who last suffered a defeat on April 23 (they were actually down 2-1 to the Hawks in that opening-round series following consecutive one-point defeats), have joined an exclusive group of teams entering the championship round with such a lengthy winning streak.
Just three other franchises — the Los Angeles Lakers in 1989, the Lakers once more in 2001 and Golden State in 2017 — have entered the NBA Finals riding postseason winning streaks of 11 games or longer.
The Lakers posted an 11-0 record through the first three playoff rounds in 1989 (when the opening round was best-of-five) before Detroit swept them in the finals. The 2001 Lakers also went 11-0 in the initial three rounds, then dropped Game 1 of the finals to Philadelphia before sweeping the remaining games to claim the championship.
Golden State achieved a 12-0 mark in Rounds 1-3 during 2017, then captured the first three finals games against Cleveland — reaching 15-0 for the playoffs — before losing Game 4 of the finals and closing out the series in Game 5.
New York isn’t simply winning. The team is winning decisively. Overwhelmingly so.
The Knicks have outscored their opponents by 262 points during this 11-game winning streak. This represents the most dominant 11-game stretch in NBA history — whether regular season or playoffs.
Boston outscored opponents by 243 points across an 11-game period in 2024. Milwaukee recorded 11-game stretches where they outscored teams by 230, 231 and 236 points (with some games overlapping between two of those runs) during 1970-71.
Those Celtics and Bucks teams both captured NBA championships in their respective seasons.
The Knicks’ average scoring margin in playoff rounds leading up to the Finals this season stands at 19.4 points per game. The previous best combined differential for all pre-Finals rounds was Golden State’s 16.3-point average per game in 2017.
The Knicks have captured six straight road playoff games by double digits. No franchise in NBA history has ever achieved such a postseason streak.
They’ve won those contests by a remarkable combined total of 161 points.
The former record for consecutive double-digit road playoff victories was five, accomplished twice — by Miami in 2013 (by a combined 75 points) and Golden State in 2017 (by a combined 88 points). Both franchises won NBA championships in those years.
