It was April 23, or 6 1/2 weeks ago. The New York Knicks had just endured their second consecutive one-point loss to the Atlanta Hawks, and this one left them trailing 2-1 in their Eastern Conference first-round series.
Signs of trouble were everywhere.
The mood in New York was abysmal.
Mike Brown's future as coach was a hot topic.
“Stuff's going to happen,” Brown, the Knicks coach in his first year, said that night in Atlanta. “Plenty of teams have been
down 1-2. I even think Oklahoma City 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.”
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 in the NBA Finals, still riding the strength of a 13-game winning streak.
A streak like that has happened once before in NBA postseason history, when counting just single-season winning runs. Golden State won 15 in a row on its way to the 2017 title.
The common thread between those Warriors and these Knicks? That would be Brown. 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.
“You've got to have good players,” Brown said. “I’m not that smart. You've got to have good players that carry you.”
Brown's playoff record, officially, is a stellar 64-42 as a head coach.
Throw those 12 games with the Warriors on his record — which, by NBA rule and precedent, doesn't happen because Kerr was still head coach, just not present on the sideline for those games — 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.
Either way, Brown now has to be considered the coaching king of the playoff winning streak.
A look inside this run by New York:
— The Knicks have outscored Atlanta, Philadelphia, Cleveland 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 — the team that Brown led on an interim basis — in 2017.
— 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 six-point win) and Game 2 of the NBA Finals against San Antonio (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 — the Knicks winning those by 29, 30, 37, 39 and 51 points.
— 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.
— 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. They trailed by 14 in Game 1 and by as many as 12 in Game 2.
— They also trailed Philadelphia by 12 in Game 3 of the East semifinals and Cleveland by 22 in Game 1 of the East final.
— New York is 8-0 on the road during this winning streak, the final margin in those games — even with a one-point game from Friday in there — averaging a staggering 21.5 points.
— 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.
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