Remember that light Knicks schedule that was supposed to get harder as the calendar year turned?
The calendar year is turning. The Knicks’ schedule is getting harder.
It’s a test for a team that’s had the 13th easiest schedule to start the 2025-26 NBA season with new head coach Mike Brown taking the reins for a team with championship expectations.
New York now owns the league’s 13th-toughest schedule over its next two weeks.
The Knicks, fresh off their come-from-behind Christmas Day victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers, started out on a three-game road trip featuring stops in Atlanta (Saturday vs. Hawks), New Orleans (Monday vs. Pelicans) and San Antonio (Wednesday vs. Spurs).
The New Year’s slate is part of a stretch of eight road games in 11 outings for a Knicks team that lost its first three away games of the season and sits at a 5-7 record away from Madison Square Garden this season. After the Spurs game, the Knicks will play host the Hawks and Philadelphia 76ers, travel to Detroit to face the Eastern Conference’s No. 1-seeded Pistons, and return home to host Los Angeles Clippers.
Then, they’ll hit the road again for a four-game West Coast swing facing the Clippers, again, the Portland Trail Blazers, Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors.
Of those teams, the Knicks are expected to defeat the Kings (7-23), Trail Blazers (12-10) and Hawks (10-15), as well as the Pelicans (8-24), who got off to a slow start but are .500 in their last 10 games building around rookie center Derik Queen. The Warriors, 76ers, Suns, Spurs and Pistons are all teams competing for a top-six playoff spot. The Knicks are 11-7 in games against teams within reach of their conference’s sixth seed this season and 10-2 against everyone else.
That’s not to say the Knicks are untested–but they punched their ticket to the NBA Cup championship against injured opponents in Toronto (without both RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley) and Orlando, who missed Franz Wagner in the East Cup semifinal and lost Jalen Suggs to injury along the way.
The Knicks, too, have had their own injury struggles with Miles McBride (ankle) and Landry Shamet (shoulder) missing from a rotation in need of their two-way production on the perimeter. McBride could return to action during the Knicks’ current three-game road trip, while Shamet still has some work to do to get back to the court following a re-injury of his dislocated shoulder from last season.
Yet the Knicks, new coach, new system, injuries and all, have had favorable results in their own conference: They’ve defeated last season’s top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers twice, are 2-2 against the Magic, 1-1 against the Boston Celtics and are 2-0 against the Raptors. And they’ve done it either without key players or without full understanding of the up-tempo, three-point heavy offense Brown implemented during training camp.
The early returns are good, maybe even great, for a Knicks team intending to hang a real banner from the MSG rafter this summer.
At least they were good with the 13th-easiest strength of schedule. Now, the Knicks will find out if they can take their show on the road–and if they can pick on opponents their own size.
