The New York Knicks are having what is, at least purely statistically, one of the greatest postseason runs in NBA history. The numbers are absolutely jarring.
As Nate Duncan has been tracking throughout the playoffs, the Knicks now have the most lopsided three-, four-, five, six-, seven-, eight-, nine-, 10-, 11-, 12- and 13-game point differentials in playoff history.
Their +18.7 net rating is not only the best in playoff history, but would beat any regular season any team has ever had in NBA history as well. Their current 10-game winning streak is just the fifth 10-game playoff winning streak in NBA history, according to The Athletic.
An unparalleled run of dominance
Between Game 4 of their first-round series with the Atlanta Hawks and Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers, the New York Knicks have been arguably the greatest statistical playoff team the NBA has ever seen.
They can make it 11 in a row, finish off a sweep of the Cavs and make their first NBA Finals since 1999 on Monday night.
The Thunder await in the Finals
Yet it's their impending Finals competition getting a majority of the buzz. The Knicks currently have the most efficient offense in playoff history at 124.1 points per 100 possessions.
However, up until Sunday, they had been No. 2. Their historic run was overshadowed by an Oklahoma City Thunder team that had been scoring more up until they were forced to play Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals without secondary shot-creators Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell.
No matter how well they play, they will be little more than cannon fodder for the Thunder in the NBA Finals. If it's not them, it'll be the San Antonio Spurs.
That's the prevailing sentiment surrounding the Knicks in this moment. The real NBA Finals are taking place on the other side of the country. The Knicks are running through the junior varsity conference. They didn't even have to play the top two seeds within that conference, as the Celtics and Pistons bowed out early.
Yes, the East is weak, but...
We can at least acknowledge the grains of truth in that argument. The Knicks have now played three playoff rounds without seeing a defense ranked higher than No. 10 in the regular season. That's a rarity. They haven't seen a top-five offense either.
Cleveland is ranked No. 6, but has had unusually poor shooting luck in the Eastern Conference Finals, making only 32.1% of their wide-open 3s thus far in the series.
Maybe if Sam Merrill's half-bang 3 goes in at the end of Game 1, this series looks different. Maybe Philadelphia is more competitive with New York if Joel Embiid were healthier. Maybe the entire path looks different if Cleveland hadn't tanked its way into the No. 4 seed down the stretch in the regular season.
The Knicks have played a relatively weak set of playoff opponents. There's no getting around that.
Still historically impressive
But to dismiss what the Knicks are doing on the basis of the teams they're playing would be enormously reductive. LeBron James won this conference nine times. He never did so in quite such dominating fashion, and while he was often a Finals underdog, his teams were never dismissed to the degree that the Knicks have been this season.
The Eastern Conference has been worse than the West for the better part of three decades now, yet eight of the past 20 champions have come from the East.
The competition here may be weak comparatively, but these are still playoff teams, and the Knicks are crushing them.
They'd be hearing less of this if the Celtics and Pistons had held up their end of the bargain in the earlier rounds. They didn't. They lost as higher seeds, and the Knicks have killed the teams that beat them.