NBA Power Rankings: Knicks' 'Belief & Fight' Reaches Top 10
The New York Knicks are surging into spring with a four-game winning streak, the last three victories coming on the road. Monday's addition was a 119-112 win over the Golden State Warriors featuring a career-best scoring showing for Miles McBride.
Entering Tuesday, the Knicks (41-27) are a game up on Orlando for fourth-place in the Eastern Conference and the streak has also moved them within striking distance of the Cleveland Cavaliers for third. Last week's wins also moved the Knicks up eight spots in CBS Sports' power rankings, where they sit in sixth with less than a month remaining in the regular season.
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"'Belief' and 'fight' were two of the words Tom Thibodeau used to describe his team's recent run, which included wins over the 76ers, Blazers, Kings, and Warriors this week," CBS Sports' Colin Ward-Henninger writes. "OG Anunoby missed Monday's win in Golden State with some soreness at his surgically repaired elbow, but it doesn't seem to matter who's been on the floor for the Knicks lately."
"Case in point, Miles McBride got the start in Anunoby's place against Golden State and put up a career-high 29 points and six three-pointers. It didn't hurt that Jalen Brunson averaged 35 points for the week, either."
Despite their recent success, the Knicks are only a game away from fifth and 3.5 games up on Indiana, the top seed in the current Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament matchups. Even with Anunoby set to miss extended time, New York will have to continue playing with that "belief and fight" mentioned by Thibodeau if they want to hold homecourt advantage in a first-round playoff series for the first time since 2013.
The Knicks finish a four-game road trip on Thursday as they visit Nikola Jokic and the defending champion Denver Nuggets (9 p.m. ET, MSG). Their return to Madison Square Garden features manageable matchups against the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday and the Detroit Pistons two days later.
