Jalen Brunson puts on a gutsy display late in the game as the Knicks rally to take Game 1 of the NBA Finals
SAN ANTONIO — The New York Knicks won their 12th straight playoff game on Wednesday, coming back from 14 points down to beat the San Antonio Spurs in Game 1 of the 2026 NBA Finals.
The 12 straight wins is tied for the second longest (single-season) streak in the history of the NBA Playoffs. It’s tied with the Spurs’ 12-game streak in 1999, when the last two wins were Games 1 and 2 of the Finals … against the Knicks.
The longest playoff winning streak in NBA history belongs to the Golden State Warriors, who won their first 15 games of the 2017 Playoffs before coming up one game short of a perfect postseason.
Here’s a statistical comparison between the three streaks:
1. Point differential – It’s all Knicks
Over the 12-game winning streak, the Knicks have outscored their opponents by 272 points. That’s 30 more points than the Warriors outscored their opponents by over the 15-game streak, when 12 of those 15 wins came by double-digits.
The Knicks have won 11 of their 12 by double-digits, with five of those wins coming by at least 29 points.
Point differential in longest playoff winning streaks, NBA history
| Team | Year | W | PPG | OppPPG | Diff. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 2026 | 12 | 121.4 | 98.8 | +22.7 |
| Golden State | 2017 | 15 | 118.9 | 102.7 | +16.1 |
| San Antonio | 1999 | 12 | 89.8 | 79.9 | +9.9 |
2. Offense and defense too
You don’t get a point differential like that without playing at a high level on both ends of the floor. And when you compare their numbers to the postseason average of each year, the Knicks’ streak has come with both the best offense and the best defense…
Efficiency in longest playoff winning streaks, NBA history
| Team | Year | OffRtg | DefRtg | NetRtg | Lg. avg. | AdjO | AdjD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 2026 | 124.6 | 101.5 | 23.2 | 111.2 | +13.4 | -9.8 |
| Golden State | 2017 | 117.3 | 101.8 | 15.5 | 110.7 | +6.6 | -9.0 |
| San Antonio | 1999 | 102.3 | 91.3 | 10.9 | 99.5 | +2.8 | -8.2 |
OffRtg = Points scored per 100 possessions | DefRtg = Points allowed per 100 possessions | NetRtg = Point differential per 100 possessions | Lg. avg = Postseason average points scored per 100 possessions | AdjO, AdjD = OffRtg & DefRtg vs. postseason average
3. Short on strength of schedule
The one area where the 2026 Knicks come up a little short in comparison to the other streaks is the strength of their opponents. The last 11 of the Warriors’ 15 wins came against teams that won at least 51 games, with four of them coming against the 61-win Spurs:
Efficiency in longest playoff winning streaks, NBA history
| Team | Year | OppW | OppL | OppPCT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Golden State | 2017 | 765 | 465 | .622 |
| San Antonio | 1999 | 368 | 232 | .613 |
| New York | 2026 | 588 | 396 | .598 |
OppL, OppW = Cumulative opponent (regular-season) wins and losses | OppPCT = Cumulative opponent (regular-season) winning percentage
Of course, these 2026 Spurs (62-20, .756) are the best team that any of these teams beat over the course of their winning streaks. And if the Knicks can beat them three more times (even if it’s not a sweep and they fall short of the Warriors’ streak), they’ll have earned the title of the greatest playoff team of all time.
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