{"id":735545,"date":"2026-05-16T03:03:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T03:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/735545\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T03:03:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T03:03:16","slug":"rick-pitino-names-best-team-remaining-in-nba-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/735545\/","title":{"rendered":"Rick Pitino Names \u2018Best Team\u2019 Remaining in NBA Playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino is a legend in the game of basketball, and he has had plenty of success throughout his career. Pitino has coached the Boston Celtics<\/a> and New York Knicks<\/a> in the NBA as well as college stops at Louisville, Kentucky and Iona before going to St. John’s and turning the program around.<\/p>\n

As of Friday afternoon, there are two teams that have already punched their ticket to the conference finals: The Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> and the Knicks.<\/p>\n

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With the conference finals starting soon, Pitino was asked about which team he thinks is the best remaining in the postseason, and he voted for the Knicks. Pitino mentioned the one negative would be not having home court for the NBA Finals against either the Thunder or the San Antonio Spurs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only negative is the home court,\u201d Pitino said, via Zach Braziller of The New York Post.<\/a> \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

Pitino spent two seasons as the Knicks’ head coach at the end of the 1980s, going 90-74 before resigning.<\/p>\n

Pitino Says Knicks Are “Championship-Driven”\"NewNew York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson<\/a> (11) \u00a9 Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

The Knicks haven’t won an NBA title since 1973, so it’s been more than 50 years.<\/p>\n

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However, with head coach Mike Brown leading the charge, the Knicks could change that narrative this year, as Pitino pointed out.<\/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 said. \u201cTheir bench is excellent, [coach Mike Brown] uses them great. The improvement offensively and defensively in OG [Anunoby], the improvement in Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a> away from the basket with his passing, [Jalen] Brunson is the most unique player I\u2019ve ever watched in my lifetime.”<\/p>\n

The Knicks finished as the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference and beat the Atlanta Hawks<\/a> in six games, although New York trailed 2-1 before winning three straight.<\/p>\n

New York then swept the No. 7 seed Philadelphia 76ers<\/a>, who stunned everyone by knocking off the Boston Celtics in seven games.<\/p>\n

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The Knicks will face either the Detroit Pistons<\/a> or the Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> in the Eastern Conference Finals, so either team presents a massive challenge.<\/p>\n

Related: Magic Johnson Makes Bold Knicks Claim After Dominant Win Over Hawks<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Lindys Sports<\/a> on May 15, 2026, where it first appeared in the NBA<\/a> section. Add Lindys Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino is a legend in the game of basketball, and he has had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":735546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[208,7,75,193,4459,188,288,563,6,191,179,207,1284,474,760,26308],"class_list":["post-735545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-atlanta-hawks","tag-basketball","tag-boston-celtics","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-coach-mike-brown","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-karl-anthony-towns","tag-nba","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-rick-pitino","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-the-knicks","tag-zach-braziller"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116582036517710090","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735545","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=735545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}