Rick Pitino has coached the Knicks before. He is coaching in New York again, this time at St. John's. And on the same morning that the basketball world was waiting to find out whether the Cleveland Cavaliers or Detroit Pistons would meet the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals, Pitino dropped a quote in the New York Post that First Take could not ignore.
"The only negative is the home court," Pitino told the Post. "Outside of that, I think the Knicks have the best team. Now, OKC obviously is great. They're the defending champions, but the Knicks are deep, talented, and the way they're playing offensively — I don't mean three-point shooting, I'm talking about the ball movement, player movement — it's so much better than what I watched in January."
That was the line Greeny put to his panel. The replies were a study in pumping the brakes — and then, despite themselves, agreeing.
Win Butler, the Knicks beat writer at the table, started in restraint mode. "Rick Pitino knows a lot about basketball, and I agree with him that since January the Knicks look completely different," Butler said. "But let's just everybody calm down with comparing them to Oklahoma City. Let's just calm down. Oklahoma City is 8-0 in the playoffs so far."
Monica McNutt, who calls Knicks games on the radio, framed Pitino's claim around health and roster construction. "If they are healthy, that means OG Anunoby is healthy," she said. "And they've got to get through the next series before we can talk finals for sure. I do think that they have emerged as one of the deeper teams in the league. I think OKC has them beat a little bit in that category. But this is why you went to Mike Brown — a guy who's willing to go to his bench, who has helped put in a system that really has benefited everybody."
Jay Williams kept circling back to one number. "The Knicks have won seven straight games in these playoffs, and only one of them was even remotely competitive," Williams said. "They have obliterated six of the other opponents in six of those seven games. The one game that was close was Game 2 of the Philadelphia series, the one game that Embiid didn't play."
Greeny, hearing his own panel, eventually planted a flag himself. "I've never heard Knicks fans, in really candidly since the early '90s, as fired up and as confident in what their team looks like as they are right now," he said.
Pitino's larger point — that the offence has been transformed, not just heated up from three — was a recurring theme on the panel. Williams credited the Karl-Anthony Towns adjustment as the unlock. "You went to Mike Brown — a guy who's willing to go to his bench," he said. "Yesterday we talked about Jalen Brunson being on ball so much, and he doesn't have to do that as much. The three-point shooting was really something that dictated what happened in the game previously. Now they're not relying on that three as much due to this new system."
McNutt added a tactical wrinkle worth watching. "How teams can match up with Karl-Anthony Towns is going to be huge because he has been that facilitator, that hub," she said. "Whether it's Jarrett Allen, Evan Mobley, Jalen Duren or even potentially Isaiah Hartenstein, or Victor Wembanyama. That's something to watch."
The Pistons' Game 6 win has forced a Game 7 in Detroit on Sunday night, meaning the Knicks will get either a wounded one-seed Cleveland team or a roaring Pistons group with a 24-point comeback already in its pocket. Either way, the panel agreed: New York is the favourite to win the East. The argument, after Pitino's quote, was whether they have already become more than that.
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*Originally published on [NBA News Global](https://nbanews.global/article/rick-pitino-knicks-best-team-mike-brown-first-take-may-2026). Visit for full coverage.*
