{"id":709669,"date":"2026-04-13T13:22:50","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T13:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/709669\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T13:22:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T13:22:50","slug":"why-knicks-early-playoff-path-could-be-trickier-than-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/709669\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Knicks&#8217; early playoff path could be trickier than expected"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bring on the Knicks.<\/p>\n<p>With a win in Miami, the Hawks could have clinched the No. 5 seed in the Eastern Conference, setting up a playoff matchup with the No. 4 Cavaliers. Instead, Atlanta lost after opting to rest its starters \u2014 at least six days before its next game \u2014 shrugging at the prospect of facing the No. 3 Knicks, <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/12\/sports\/knicks-lose-regular-season-finale-will-play-hawks-in-playoffs\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">who will host the No. 6 Hawks<\/a> in Game 1 of their first-round series this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Entering Sunday, the Knicks appeared on track for the best matchup imaginable. With a Hawks win \u2014 and a Toronto victory over the tanking Nets \u2014 the Knicks would have squared off with the Raptors, having already claimed five double-digit wins over Toronto this season.<\/p>\n<p>Now, the Knicks <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/12\/sports\/ghost-of-trae-young-looms-over-knicks-hawks-playoff-matchup\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">will face off with one of the league\u2019s hottest teams<\/a>, who have thrived since trading Trae Young. Prior to Sunday, the Hawks had won 19 of their previous 23 games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bring on the Knicks. With a win in Miami, the Hawks could have clinched the No. 5 seed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3776],"tags":[676,208,3874,7,4517,677,2715,6,11,191,3823,66,196],"class_list":{"0":"post-709669","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-hawks","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-hawks","10":"tag-atlantahawks","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-beyond-the-back-page","13":"tag-hawks","14":"tag-miles-mcbride","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-nba-playoffs","17":"tag-new-york-knicks","18":"tag-post-sports-newsletters","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-sports-plus"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116397626807623325","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}