3 goals Knicks must accomplish with 9 games remaining

The New York Knicks are about to embark on what is easily their most anticipated playoff run in decades.

Only nine games remain until Mike Brown’s squad sets out on a journey that all of New York City (except for the dozens of Nets fans) will be watching. To ensure they are as prepared as possible for the grind, the Knicks must accomplish these three goals before the clock strikes triple zeroes on No. 82.

1. Secure the No. 2 seed

With their win over the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday night, the Knicks are mere percentage points behind the Boston Celtics for the Eastern Conference’s No. 2 seed.

Winning this race will be critical for the Knicks’ championship hopes. If New York and Boston finish with the second and third seeds (in either order), they will be on a collision course to meet in the second round. The higher-seeded team will host a potential Game 7.

The Knicks are 27-9 at Madison Square Garden compared to 20-16 on the road. The seven-win disparity between their home and away records is tied for the largest in the NBA.

No team needs home-court advantage more than the Knicks. They must stay locked-in over the next nine games to ensure a potential Knicks-Celtics Game 7 is played at the World’s Most Famous Arena.

Of course, the Knicks will have to figure out how to win on the road at some point, as they would likely not have home-court advantage in a potential Eastern Conference Finals against the Detroit Pistons. The same goes for a potential NBA Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder or San Antonio Spurs.

Still, you want to add every percentage point to your title hopes as possible. When your home record is seven games better than your road record, it’s a net-positive to play one extra home game in a potential semifinals series.

2. Get Mikal Bridges right offensively—in terms of efficiency, not volume

As we broke down on Tuesday, the criticism of Mikal Bridges is out of hand for one specific reason: his defense has been excellent this season, especially over the past two months.

Nonetheless, it is fair to say that Bridges’ offense has been disastrous over the last 18 games. Over this span, he is averaging just 10.8 points per game on a 48.4% effective field goal percentage.

This has to cease if the Knicks are going to have a deep playoff run.

When the Knicks have an efficient Bridges, they are extremely difficult to stop. That doesn’t mean he needs to drop 25 points a night. They just need him to convert his looks at a respectable clip, whether he attempts 15 shots or 5.

This season, in games when Bridges had an effective field goal percentage below 50%, the Knicks are 9-11, the equivalent of a 37-win team. As long as he hits the 50% benchmark, they’re 39-14, a 60-win pace.

Recently, the Knicks have been winning in spite of Bridges’ inefficient shooting, but they’re lucky that his cold streak has overlapped with a soft part of the schedule. During this seven-game win streak, they won games where Bridges shot under 50% (in terms of eFG%) against Indiana, Golden State, and Utah.

But when Bridges shoots under 50% against a team with a winning record this season, the Knicks are just 5-9. All but one of those nine losses were by at least eight points.

Bridges is trending in the right direction. He hit the 50% benchmark in each of the Knicks’ last three games, recording a 58.3% effective field goal percentage overall across this span, which is higher than his career average (56.2%).

Force-feeding the ball to Bridges to raise his PPG isn’t the goal over the next nine games. It’s to help him find a comfortable role where he can get high-quality looks within the flow of the offense, so he can enter the playoffs with his shooting confidence back to normal.

3. Find ways to start faster against quality opponents

The Knicks are on a seven-game win streak, but it’s no thanks to their ability to hit the ground running.

Over the last seven games, New York has a -6.5 net rating in the first quarter, ranking 22nd in the NBA over this span.

The good news is that their win streak features a +16.6 net rating in the second quarter, a +23.4 net rating in the third quarter, and a +22.2 net rating in the fourth quarter. So, the Knicks have been overwhelmingly dominant for the majority of their recent games.

But it’s a lot easier to get away with coasting in the first quarter against the Brooklyn Nets and Utah Jazz than it is against the Thunder or Celtics.

After blazing through a pillow-soft slate, the Knicks’ schedule will ramp back up over the final nine games. Their upcoming opponents have a .554 win percentage, giving New York the NBA’s second-toughest remaining schedule.

This is an opportunity for Mike Brown and the Knicks’ coaching staff to refine their strategies at the start of games. While New York is talented enough to escape an early hole against teams with vastly inferior talent, it will be far tougher to climb out of a ditch against teams like Oklahoma City and Boston, who have the type of defense that can keep the Knicks in their rearview.

In fact, New York’s Thursday night matchup with the Charlotte Hornets will be a fantastic test in this regard. Charlotte has the NBA’s sixth-best net rating in the first quarter (+7.9) since Jan. 1, sparked by a starting five that has been among the league’s most unstoppable in 2026.

The Knicks and Hornets have two of the three most heavily utilized lineups in the NBA, but one of these units has been elite, while the other has been mediocre.

New York’s five-man lineup of Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart, OG Anunoby, and Karl-Anthony Towns ranks second in the NBA with 446 minutes. Their net rating, though, is an uninspiring +4.7, just 12th among the 16 lineups that have been used for at least 200 minutes.

Charlotte’s five-man lineup of LaMelo Ball, Kon Knueppel, Miles Bridges, Brandon Miller, and Moussa Diabate ranks third in the league with 404 minutes, while their +28.5 net rating ranks No. 1 even if you cut the qualifier down to 100 minutes, which increases the sample to 70 lineups.

Starting on Thursday, the Knicks have to start gearing up for the playoffs by focusing on coming out of the gates faster against quality opponents remaining on their schedule, like Charlotte, Oklahoma City, and Boston.