{"id":754152,"date":"2026-06-06T16:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T16:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/754152\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T16:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T16:36:14","slug":"knicks-coach-mike-brown-again-finds-himself-reveling-in-a-long-playoff-win-streak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/754152\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks coach Mike Brown again finds himself reveling in a long playoff win streak"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was April 23, or 6 1\/2 weeks ago. The New York Knicks<\/a> had just endured their second consecutive one-point loss to the Atlanta Hawks<\/a>, and this one left them trailing 2-1 in their Eastern Conference first-round series.<\/p>\n

Signs of trouble were everywhere.<\/p>\n

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The mood in New York<\/a> was abysmal.<\/p>\n

Mike Brown’s future as coach was a hot topic.<\/p>\n

\u201cStuff’s going to happen,\u201d Brown, the Knicks coach in his first year, said that night in Atlanta. \u201cPlenty of teams have been down 1-2. I even think Oklahoma City<\/a> was down 1-2 last year and they ended up winning it. I’m not saying we’re going to win it or anything like that, but the reality of it is it’s seven games and you take one game at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Knicks have played 13 games since. The results: win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win and win. One game at a time, one win at a time, and quite possibly, one championship at a time. The Knicks are back in New York with a 2-0 lead over San Antonio<\/a> in the NBA Finals, still riding the strength of a 13-game winning streak<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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A streak like that has happened once before in NBA postseason history, when counting just single-season winning runs. Golden State<\/a> won 15 in a row on its way to the 2017 title.<\/p>\n

The common thread between those Warriors and these Knicks? That would be Brown<\/a>. He was an assistant on that Golden State staff and went 12-0 as acting head coach during the playoffs while Steve Kerr was sidelined by back issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou’ve got to have good players,\u201d Brown said. \u201cI\u2019m not that smart. You’ve got to have good players that carry you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown’s playoff record, officially, is a stellar 64-42 as a head coach.<\/p>\n

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Throw those 12 games with the Warriors on his record \u2014 which, by NBA rule and precedent, doesn’t happen because Kerr was still head coach, just not present on the sideline for those games \u2014 and Brown’s playoff winning percentage would rise to .644. That would be third best in NBA history among coaches with at least 100 playoff games, behind only Phil Jackson and Kerr.<\/p>\n

Either way, Brown now has to be considered the coaching king of the playoff winning streak.<\/p>\n

A look inside this run by New York<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Dominant margins<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Knicks have outscored Atlanta, Philadelphia<\/a>, Cleveland<\/a> and San Antonio in these 13 games by 273 points, the biggest 13-game margin in NBA playoff history. Before this stretch, the biggest 13-game playoff point-differential margin was 225, by those Warriors \u2014 the team that Brown led on an interim basis \u2014 in 2017.<\/p>\n

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\u2014 All but two of the Knicks’ wins in this streak were by double figures. The exceptions: Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against Philadelphia<\/a> (a six-point win) and Game 2 of the NBA Finals against San Antonio<\/a> (a one-point win). Six additional wins have come with a final margin between 10 and 16 points, and the other five were total blowouts \u2014 the Knicks winning those by 29, 30, 37, 39 and 51 points.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Knicks have led by 40 or more in four different games during the streak, including a 61-point lead at Atlanta in the clinching game of that East first-round series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rarely in trouble<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Knicks have faced double-digit deficits in just four of the games, with two of those the first two of these NBA Finals against the Spurs<\/a>. They trailed by 14 in Game 1<\/a> and by as many as 12 in Game 2.<\/p>\n

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\u2014 They also trailed Philadelphia by 12 in Game 3 of the East semifinals and Cleveland by 22 in Game 1 of the East final.<\/p>\n

Road warriors<\/p>\n

\u2014 New York is 8-0 on the road during this winning streak, the final margin in those games \u2014 even with a one-point game from Friday in there \u2014 averaging a staggering 21.5 points.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The only team in Knicks history with a longer road winning streak, either in the regular season or playoffs, was the 1969-70 team that once won 12 in a row away from home. That team went on to win New York’s first NBA title.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was April 23, or 6 1\/2 weeks ago. The New York Knicks had just endured their second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[208,7,52,305,1409,479,2559,304,3357,6,11,1136,475,678,969,534,863,40491],"class_list":["post-754152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-playoffs","tag-atlanta-hawks","tag-basketball","tag-brown","tag-cleveland","tag-eastern-conference","tag-golden-state","tag-head-coach","tag-knicks","tag-mike-brown","tag-nba","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-new-york","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-philadelphia","tag-san-antonio","tag-spurs","tag-steve-kerr","tag-winning-streak"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116704141864439315","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754152","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=754152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}