The simple reason Knick fans shouldn’t worry about ugly win streak

This was supposed to be a “soft” portion of the New York Knicks’ schedule.

If you only look at the win-loss column, New York has taken care of business in this supposedly easy slate of games. The Knicks have won five straight games, giving them the longest active win streak in the Eastern Conference.

But if you actually watched the games (which, of course, you, the die-hard Knicks fan, have done)… New York’s recent stretch has been anything but awe-inspiring.

Second-half heroics from Jordan Clarkson were required to best the lowly Utah Jazz.

The bottom-feeding Indiana Pacers took New York to the wire in a grind-fest at the Fieldhouse.

A Golden State Warriors team with nearly its entire rotation sidelined went up by as many as 21 points before the Knicks clawed back for a three-point victory.

In a rematch at the Garden, Indiana led well into the first half before New York finally woke up.

Last night in Brooklyn, the Knicks had to fight tooth-and-nail against the Brooklyn Nets’ teenage squad for a one-point triumph.

For New York fans who are focused less on the standings and more on the team’s championship-readiness, the last five games have been troubling. Many members of the orange-and-blue faithful are having a hard time envisioning the Knicks as title contenders after they allowed the likes of Josh Minott to take them down to the final possession.

The last five games have undoubtedly been ugly. The Knicks can, and must, play better.

However, this stretch should not cause fans to worry about the team’s championship hopes, and it’s for a simple reason.

The Knicks are winning, people

We can talk about net ratings and strength of schedule all day long. I, as an analytical sports observer, quite literally do think about these things all day long.

At the end of the day, though, all of the deep analysis is intended to achieve one goal: winning.

If the Knicks could win 82 straight one-point games with 22 turnovers a night, every fan would gladly sign up for it. Obviously, that is unrealistic, which is why we value metrics like net rating. If you are winning by greater margins, it is indicative of the type of habits that can anchor sustained winning. If you are winning narrowly, especially against weak competition, it feels less sustainable.

“Winning ugly” is difficult to sustain. Ideally, you would prefer for the Knicks to obliterate teams like Utah and Brooklyn from start to finish. That would be a better indicator of their ability to win future games against better teams.

Nonetheless, the Knicks are sustaining “winning ugly” right now. They’re finding ways to win on nights when Knicks teams of yesteryear would succumb to the frustration and find the most glorious way to choke the game away. It says a lot about the resolve of this Knicks team that they can consistently grind out victories on nights when they clearly had no business winning.

It speaks to their ability to remain mentally tough through adversity, as well as to their sheer talent, which allows them to prevail over teams that simply don’t have the pure skill to out-execute New York in clutch moments when one-on-one play is king. Yes, every playoff team is more talented than the Nets, but the Knicks will have that talent advantage over most playoff teams, too, including perhaps every Eastern Conference team.

There is value to be found in the unappealing nature of the Knicks’ recent wins. Yes, the overall quality of their play must improve; the same level of play will not lead to wins against playoff teams. But New York is learning how to win games even when seemingly everything is going wrong, and those lessons will be useful in the playoffs.

As pretty as it is to put a team like Brooklyn down by 30-plus and use your mop-up squad for the entire fourth quarter, that brand of basketball does nothing to prepare the Knicks’ key players for playoff basketball. It isn’t even the same sport.

Last night’s win featured five technical fouls, multiple post-play skirmishes, 22 Knicks turnovers, and 27.6% three-point shooting from the New York offense. If the Knicks are going to beat teams like Boston or Detroit in a playoff series, they must be able to win at least one game like this in a seven-game series. They cannot rely on securing four wins in which they shoot 50% from deep and have the game wrapped up at half.

That’s why Knicks fans should be glad to see the team participating in (and winning) games like the one they played last night, as grotesque as it may look on paper to beat the tanking Nets 93-92. This type of game will help rev New York up for the playoff grind in ways that a 54-point blowout would not.

Not to mention, as much as fans are complaining about the Knicks’ recent margins of victory, they still have a +11.9 net rating over this five-game win streak, which ranks third-best in the NBA over that span, narrowly trailing only Detroit (+12.5) and Oklahoma City (+12.7).

Extend it to the past month (Feb. 21-March 21), and the Knicks remain fifth in net rating (+9.3). Stretch it to the past two months (Jan. 21-March 21), and they hold the NBA’s No. 1 spot (+12.1), with the Spurs (+11.3) being the only other team in double-digits.

Chill out, Knicks fans. New York is still very much on track to enter the 2026 NBA playoffs as a much more dangerous threat than they were a year ago.

Sure, things have been ugly as of late—the Knicks themselves will admit it.

But when has playoff basketball ever been renowned for its beauty? Hoops fans adore the sport’s postseason for its ramped-up intensity, physicality, and grit. Gone is the dishing-and-swishing, and in comes the hustle-and-muscle that made every ’90s kid in New York bleed orange-and-blue.

So, when the Knicks win a playoff game with under 100 points while shooting sub-30% from deep and getting into two fights, fans can look back fondly on wins like last night’s, taking solace in the fact that New York ramped up for the playoffs with playoff-type basketball instead of the leisurely cruise ship voyages that dominate the schedules of modern NBA powerhouses.