List of New York Knicks seasons

The inside of an arena with large scoreboard visible, which is set up for basketball.
Madison Square Garden is the home arena of the Knicks.

The New York Knickerbockers, better known as the New York Knicks, are a professional basketball team based in New York City that competes in the National Basketball Association (NBA). The team has played in the NBA throughout the league's entire history. The Knicks play in the Eastern Conference's Atlantic Division. In its 78 seasons, the franchise has reached the NBA Finals eight times and won two championships. As of the end of the 2023–24 season, New York has won more than 2,900 regular season games, and the team has the fourth-highest victory total in NBA history.[1] Since 1968, the Knicks have played home games at Madison Square Garden.[2]

One of the Basketball Association of America's (BAA) 11 teams during its inaugural season, the Knicks won the league's first game, defeating the Toronto Huskies 68–66 on November 1, 1946.[3] The club qualified for the playoffs in the league's first three seasons before the BAA merged with the National Basketball League in 1949 to form the NBA.[4] Following the merger, New York extended its streak of playoff appearances to nine consecutive years. The team reached the NBA Finals each year from 1952 to 1954. The Knicks returned to the Finals in 1970 and defeated the Los Angeles Lakers in seven games for the team's first title. New York and Los Angeles faced each other again in the 1972 Finals, a series that the Lakers won four games to one. The Knicks earned their second NBA championship the following year, as they won a rematch with Los Angeles in five games.

From 1988 to 2001, the franchise made the playoffs in 14 consecutive seasons. The team reached its first NBA Finals in 21 seasons in 1994, losing to the Houston Rockets in seven games. Five years later, New York again lost in the NBA Finals, this time in a five-game series against the San Antonio Spurs. The Knicks struggled during the early years of the 21st century, winning only one playoff series between 2001 and 2022. In the 2023–24 season, New York posted a 50–32 record and reached the playoffs, losing to the Indiana Pacers in the conference semifinals.

  1. ^ "List of all the NBA & ABA Teams". Basketball-Reference. Sports Reference. Archived from the original on May 1, 2012. Retrieved May 27, 2024.
  2. ^ "Madison Square Garden given 10-year lease limit". USA Today. Associated Press. July 25, 2013. Archived from the original on September 4, 2017. Retrieved September 3, 2017.
  3. ^ Goldaper, Sam. "The First Game". National Basketball Association. Turner Sports Interactive. Archived from the original on September 7, 2012. Retrieved June 15, 2022.
  4. ^ "This Day In History Aug 3, 1949: NBA is born". History. A&E Television Networks. Archived from the original on March 7, 2010. Retrieved April 5, 2010.