Knicks sweep 76ers in second round
- New York finished off Philadelphia with a 144-114 Game 4 rout on May 10, sweeping the East semifinals and reaching the conference finals again. - The telling number was 144 — a Knicks playoff scoring record — with Miles McBride scoring 25 and Jalen Brunson adding 22. - It sends New York to Detroit next after the Pistons beat Cleveland, while Philly heads into another ugly offseason.
The Knicks didn’t just beat the 76ers. They flattened them. New York closed the second round with a 144-114 win in Philadelphia on Sunday, May 10, finishing a 4-0 sweep and getting back to the Eastern Conference finals for the second straight year. The bigger point is how easy they made it look. This wasn’t one dramatic closeout. It was a series where the Knicks looked deeper, cleaner, and way more coherent from the opening tip. ### Was this actually a sweep, and when did it happen? Yes — and that matters because some early writeups framed it like a Tuesday result. The closeout happened Sunday, May 10, 2026, in Game 4. New York had already taken the first three games, including a 108-94 win in Game 3 behind 33 from Jalen Brunson, so the series was basically hanging by a thread before the final blow landed. (si.com) ### How lopsided was the closeout? Pretty absurd. The Knicks put up 43 points in the first quarter, led by double digits almost immediately, and never let Philadelphia back into the game. By the end, that 144-point total stood as a franchise playoff record. The 76ers’ only lead was 2-0. After that, it turned into a long public unraveling. (gmanetwork.com) ### Wait — wasn’t Brunson supposed to have 39? Turns out that detail looks wrong. In the Game 4 blowout, Brunson scored 22, not 39. The Knicks didn’t need a superhero shot diet because the whole rotation cooked. Miles McBride led them with 25, and New York hit Philadelphia with the kind of balanced scoring night that usually means a defense has stopped solving any problems at all. (si.com) ### So what won the series? Shotmaking, depth, and control. New York opened the matchup by blasting the 76ers 137-98 in Game 1, then kept squeezing. Brunson was the engine, but the real story was that the Knicks kept getting useful offense from everywhere and never looked rattled. Under Mike Brown, they’ve now stacked seven straight playoff wins, carrying momentum from the end of the Atlanta series straight through Philadelphia. (sportingnews.com) ### Why does this feel bigger than one series? Because the Knicks were already under a microscope after last year’s conference finals run and the coaching change that followed. Firing Tom Thibodeau after reaching that stage was a huge swing. Replacing him with Brown looked risky. Right now it looks inspired. New York is back in the East finals immediately, and this version of the team looks more explosive than the one that got there a year ago. (nba.com) ### What happens next for New York? Detroit. The NBA’s playoff bracket now shows the Knicks facing the Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals, with New York holding a 1-0 lead in that series. So the sweep didn’t send the Knicks into a waiting game for long — it pushed them straight into a real shot at the Finals. ### And what about the 76ers? This is the brutal part. (cbsnews.com) Philadelphia came through the play-in and then upset Boston in seven just to get here, but the reward was getting embarrassed by a Knicks team that looked faster and more settled every night. Another postseason ends with the same question hanging over the franchise — how much of this core can still be trusted to hold up in May? (nba.com) ### Bottom line? The news isn’t just that the Knicks advanced. It’s that they overwhelmed Philadelphia so completely that the series changed the temperature around both teams. New York looks like a real East champion threat. Philly looks like it’s headed back to the drawing board. (nba.com)
