The Knicks are banged up, but they’re not backing down - and the win column is starting to show it.
Sunday’s victory over the Toronto Raptors marked four straight for New York, a team navigating injuries to key rotation pieces but still managing to stack wins. OG Anunoby (hamstring) and Landry Shamet (shoulder) remain sidelined, yet the Knicks have found a way to keep pushing forward. The streak includes wins over Toronto, Milwaukee, Charlotte, and Brooklyn - a mix of competition, sure, but every win counts for a squad trying to find its rhythm with a reshuffled lineup.
And don’t expect any excuses. The Knicks aren’t making them, so neither should we.
Yes, the Raptors were missing R.J. Barrett.
Yes, Giannis Antetokounmpo was on a minutes restriction in the Bucks game. But the Knicks are winning games while playing short-handed - and they’re doing it with grit and execution, not caveats.
Heading into Tuesday’s matchup with the Celtics, New York held the NBA’s second-longest active win streak. Only the defending champs, the Oklahoma City Thunder, were hotter - riding a 12-game tear of their own. That’s elite company, and the Knicks are starting to look like they belong in the conversation.
So what’s driving the surge? According to Mikal Bridges and Miles McBride, it all starts with defense. And the numbers back them up.
The turning point came when head coach Mike Brown made a subtle but significant move: inserting Josh Hart into the starting lineup. It wasn’t a flashy change - it happened while Mitchell Robinson was out sick - but it’s been a game-changer.
Brown later admitted that benching Hart earlier in the season was a mistake, and since the switch, the Knicks have been dominant. They lead the league in net rating, outscoring opponents by 17.6 points per 100 possessions, and they rank third in defensive efficiency - trailing only Oklahoma City and Indiana.
“Definitely the defensive end,” McBride said after the win in Toronto. “I think we’re communicating a lot better.
Tonight we had some bumps getting back in transition. They got out, but that’s what they do really well so give credit to them.
I feel defensively we just locked in a lot more.”
That defensive focus has become the team’s identity - and it’s showing up in the results.
Bridges, ever the internal critic, isn’t letting the team get too comfortable. He was quick to pivot from the Knicks’ impressive 10-1 home record to their less flattering 3-5 mark on the road. Even after a convincing win over the Raptors, he wasn’t satisfied.
“I think just [being] aggressive on defense and staying with it, and it’s a game of runs,” Bridges said. “We were up a lot today, and Scottie hit a lot of threes to bring them back.
So just staying the course. They’re a really good team.
You’re not gonna beat every team by 20 or 30. It’s a game of runs, so just staying with it all the time and not getting discouraged when they go on a run.”
That mindset - staying locked in, even when leads shrink and momentum shifts - is exactly what’s fueling this win streak. And it’s happening without Anunoby, arguably their best defender, and Shamet, who’s proving to be one of the smartest pickups of the offseason.
This is where Brown’s offseason work is paying off. He retooled the offense during training camp not just to showcase stars, but to build a system that could hold up when injuries hit. That’s exactly what we’re seeing now: a team that doesn’t panic when it’s down a couple of key guys, because the structure is strong enough to carry them.
Of course, the road ahead gets tougher. The schedule tightens, the opponents get better, and the margin for error shrinks. But the Knicks are showing they’re built to handle adversity.
Team captain Jalen Brunson summed it up best: “We’re holding each other more accountable, paying attention to detail a little bit more. I think we can still get better at that.
The little things matter more than you think, and if we keep believing that and keep doing that, we’ll keep winning games. But playing in this league - there’s obviously so much talent - the little things can make or break wins and losses.
So we’ve gotta continue to do all the little stuff and keep piggybacking and going off those wins.”
This isn’t just a hot streak - it’s a team finding its identity in real time. And if this version of the Knicks keeps showing up, they’re going to be a problem for anyone standing in their way.