![\"Head](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Rick-Pitino.jpg\")
Head coach Rick Pitino celebrates after St. John\u2019s second-round win over Kansas in the 2026 NCAA Tournament. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\nYou can add Rick Pitino to the rapidly expanding Knicks bandwagon.<\/p>\n
The St. John\u2019s coach sees the possibility of the orange and blue going deep \u2014 deeper than the franchise has gone in more than 50 years.<\/p>\n
Yes, that includes a championship. The Hall of Famer believes this surging group has that kind of potential.<\/p>\n
Head coach Rick Pitino celebrates after St. John\u2019s second-round win over Kansas in the 2026 NCAA Tournament. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they have the best nine or 10 players. They may not have the best three, they have the best nine or 10,\u201d Pitino told The Post. \u201cTheir bench is excellent, [coach Mike Brown] uses them great. The improvement offensively and defensively in OG [Anunoby], the improvement in Karl-Anthony Towns away from the basket with his passing, [Jalen] Brunson is the most unique player I\u2019ve ever watched in my lifetime.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love it. I root for the Knicks like they\u2019re my team. I do think they are championship driven.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Knicks are on a stunning run, coming off a conference semifinal sweep of the 76ers \u2014 the first time they have swept Philadelphia in the playoffs since Pitino was the coach in 1989. <\/p>\n
They have won seven straight playoff games by an average of 26.4 points and are currently the betting favorites to reach the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999.<\/p>\n
Though most experts still see the defending champion Thunder as the favorite, the Knicks are playing just as well. <\/p>\n
Since the team tweaked its offensive game plan to run more offense through center Towns \u2014 the change happened during the opening-round series against the Hawks \u2014 the Knicks have found a higher level. In the postseason, Towns has 66 assists \u2014 40 more than he amassed in the playoffs a year ago.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThey look for each other much better than before,\u201d Pitino said. \u201cIf you watch Cleveland and Detroit, you know the ball is going to [Cade] Cunningham or [James] Harden is going to create or the ball is going to be in Donovan [Mitchell\u2019s] hands. Although Brunson is a great scorer, they are sharing the basketball so well that keying on Brunson is not enough to stop this team. Before the Atlanta series, keying on Brunson was the way to stop the Knicks. That\u2019s no longer working because of their ball movement.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey went from a one-on-one team to a ball movement, player movement team. They do a lot of different offensive things that are much more pleasing to the eye.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brunson remains the linchpin. The three-time All-Star is enjoying another awesome postseason, averaging 27.4 points and 6.1 assists. <\/p>\n
He is shooting a robust 48.5 percent from the field and 40.9 percent on 6.6 attempts from 3-point range. Both are his highest numbers as a Knick in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow a player that size with that vertical can get off any shot around the basket, he\u2019s got Tiny Archibald in him around the basketball. He has the best midrange game,\u201d Pitino said. \u201cHe gets off any shot midrange and he\u2019s become a great 3-point shooter. He\u2019s just an amazing, amazing 6-foot, 2-inch basketball player. Pound for pound, inch for inch, maybe one of the best players I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The next two rounds figure to be tougher. The Knicks opponent in the conference finals has yet to be determined. <\/p>\n
The Pistons-Cavaliers series is tied 2-2. If the Knicks get past that round, it will likely be either the Thunder or the Victor Wembanyama-led Spurs to follow. <\/p>\n
They wouldn\u2019t have home-court advantage against either of those teams. But with the way the Knicks are currently playing, nobody should scare them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only negative is the home court,\u201d Pitino said. \u201cOutside of that, I think the Knicks have the best team. Now OKC obviously is great, they\u2019re the defending champions. But the Knicks are deep, talented, and the way they are playing offensively \u2014 I don\u2019t mean 3-point shooting, I\u2019m talking about the ball movement, player movement \u2014 it\u2019s so much better than what I watched in January.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You can add Rick Pitino to the rapidly expanding Knicks bandwagon. The St. John\u2019s coach sees the possibility…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806,1284,66],"class_list":["post-733032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-knicks","tag-basketball","tag-knicks","tag-nba","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkknicks","tag-rick-pitino","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116565804879630996","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733032","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=733032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}