The Knicks may have clearer weaknesses than any other team that considers themselves a contender. Their best player is an undersized negative defender, the offense can be stagnant despite posting strong numbers, the outside shooting can abandon them at times, and the starting lineup often digs themselves into deep holes to start out games. But the Knicks also do a lot of things really well. Despite how the season started, their defense has statistically been amongst the best in 2026, they have two
extremely talented offensive players with Jalen Brunson being one of the best postseason players in the league, and know how to win dirty.
One area of their game that doesn’t get talked about enough though, is just how dominant they have been in the fourth quarter. As of April 9th, the Knicks are seventh in fourth quarter offensive rating, first in fourth quarter defensive rating by a significant margin, and they are first in the league in fourth quarter net rating at a whopping 11.6. They are also fourth in the league in offensive rebounding percentage, second in the league in defensive rebounding percentage, and first in overall rebounding percentage during the final quarter.
And since the Knicks suffered an embarrassing home loss to the Mavericks on January 19th, they are seventh in the league in offensive rating during what NBA.com defines as clutch minutes, and are also sixth in clutch offensive rating, and fourth in clutch net rating while playing the sixth most clutch minutes. During those minutes, the Knicks posted the lowest turnover percentage (some of this can be attributed to the heliocentric, and stagnant offense they tend to run late in games), and were also fifth in the league in rebounding percentage.
We’ve seen this play out multiple times in varying ways. The strong fourth quarter against the Cavaliers on Christmas day, the big comeback against the Rockets, the back-to-back comebacks against the Celtics last year, and the close wins against the Pistons in the first-round last season, they’ve been there and done that when it comes to eking out wins with the exception of game one in the Eastern Conference Finals last year.
While not everything during the regular season translates the post season, fans can, and likely should feel confident about the fact that this battle-tested group performed exceptionally well when it mattered most. It would be nice to see the Knicks start off games better, and not have to rely on a fourth quarter run or a late-game surge. But this should be one of the core strengths of this team come playoff time.
