The Knicks defeat the 76ers, 108-94, to take a commanding 3-0 series lead.
It’s been only two weeks since the New York Knicks were down 2-1 in the first round of the 2026 NBA Playoffs. But given the stakes and stress of the postseason, it feels much longer. And given how dominant they’ve been over those two weeks, the probability of the Knicks reaching the Finals for the first time in 27 years feels much stronger.
The Knicks are now more than halfway there, having secured a 108-94 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 3 of Eastern Conference Semifinals on Friday. New York’s sixth straight victory put it one win from its first best-of-seven sweep since 1999.
Jalen Brunson led the Knicks with 33 points and nine assists, while Mikal Bridges added 23 points on 8-for-14 shooting. New York withstood both the absence of OG Anunoby (hamstring strain) and the return of Joel Embiid, who finished with just 18 points in 35 minutes after missing Game 2 with ankle and hip injuries. Tyrese Maxey had a similarly quiet night, and the Sixers now face an 0-3 deficit.
Here are some notes, numbers and film as the Knicks moved one win from their second straight trip to the Eastern Conference Finals:
1. Sixers can’t take advantage of Anunoby’s absence
The Knicks were just 9-8 without Anunoby in the regular season, and you could argue that, after Brunson, he’s the most important player in their rotation. Without him, they get much smaller on the perimeter, and it was 6-foot-2 guard Miles McBride that replaced him in the starting lineup.
The change should have allowed the Sixers to assign Paul George to guard either Brunson or Karl-Anthony Towns without worrying about having enough size against Anunoby. But George opened the game guarding Josh Hart, with VJ Edgecombe guarding Brunson and Embiid checking Towns. That led to some entertaining physicality between the two starting centers, but not much defensive success for the Sixers after the first six minutes of Game 3.
Brunson was consistently able to gain separation from Edgecombe and put Embiid on his heels. There was a stretch in the third quarter where the Knicks ran Brunson-Embiid actions on seven straight possessions. And it mostly bore fruit:
In the two games he’s played, Embiid has been the screener’s defender on 45 ball screens set for Brunson, and the Knicks have scored an efficient 1.30 points per possession with that action.
Towns grabbed four offensive rebounds in less than 26 minutes, so there’s reason to prefer defending him with a center. But the Sixers finally had George guard him early in the fourth quarter, when both Brunson and Embiid were off the floor. And George twice defended Towns well in the post, allowing the Sixers to go on an 8-1 run that cut the Knicks’ lead to four:
But overall, the Sixers have been seemingly reticent to assign their best (and most versatile) defender to either of the Knicks’ best offensive players. They’ve been mostly vanilla in regard to how they’ve matched up, and they’ve allowed the Knicks to score an efficient 123 points per 100 possessions over the three games.
2. Bridges is on fire
The Knicks have been difficult to guard no matter what the matchups are. The Sixers actually had a higher expected field goal percentage than the Knicks in Game 3*, but underperformed in regard to the quality of their shots. New York overperformed, shooting better than expected, and now leads the series 3-0.
* The Knicks had a much higher eFG% in both Games 1 and 2.
One Knick who’s been making tough shots is Bridges, averaging 20.5 points on 69.0% shooting (including 7-for-13 from 3-point range) over the last four games. He had been struggling offensively through the first five games of the first round, but found something in the Knicks’ Game 6 blowout in Atlanta, and he hasn’t slowed down since.
Mikal Bridges puts up 23 points in the Knicks' Game 3 win over the 76ers.
Once again, the Knicks had some incredible late-clock magic, shooting 13-for-22 (59%) in the last seven seconds of the shot clock, when field goal percentage is typically at its lowest. (The Sixers were 4-for-18 in those situations.) The Knicks have been consistently able to come up with something late in the clock after gaining minimal advantages through the first 17-20 seconds of a possession.
Brunson is the primary late-clock magician, but Bridges has been a pretty good opening act. And while Brunson’s late-clock work is usually done in isolation, Bridges is more likely to come out of nowhere and make himself available when a teammate needs somebody to bail him out.
Late in the first quarter, Brunson was double-teamed, Bridges flashed to the ball and then drove past Kelly Oubre Jr. for a layup. Late in the second, Bridges again flashed to the ball and drew a foul on George with four seconds left on the clock:
In addition to his hot shooting from the field, Bridges is a perfect 11-for-11 from the line in the playoffs, with his five attempts on Friday tied for his second-highest tally of the season (91 games).
3. Sixers wait too long to hack Robinson
Mitchell Robinson has not been perfect. He’s 9-for-25 (28%) from the line in the playoffs after shooting 41% in the regular season. The Sixers have now intentionally fouled him off the ball four times in this series, twice in Game 1 and twice in the third quarter of Game 3.
The Game 1 fouls worked as intended. Robinson went 0-for-4, ending a string of six straight scores for the Knicks, who took him out of the game immediately after the second pair of misses. The Game 3 hacking was less successful, with Robinson shooting 3-for-4.
It also should have come much earlier.
The Sixers led this game by 12 points in the first quarter and by four entering the second. But they then allowed the Knicks to score 33 points on 22 second-quarter possessions. New York led by 11 at the half and never lost control of the game after that.
The Knicks had already scored 17 points on 11 possessions to take the lead in the second when Philadelphia committed its fourth foul of the period with 5:15 on the clock. So the Knicks were in the bonus, and Robinson was on the floor, with Towns in foul trouble.
But the Sixers chose not to foul the guy whose free throws (regular season and playoffs combined) have yielded a rate of 0.8 points per possession. Instead, they allowed the Knicks to score 1.5 points per possession in the second.
And in Robinson’s 19 minutes on the floor in Game 3, the Knicks outscored the Sixers by 16 points.
4. Knicks dominate the glass
Robinson was credited with only two offensive rebounds on Friday, but he kept other possessions alive by drawing loose-ball fouls on the glass. And his teammates grabbed another 11 offensive boards, as the Knicks outscored the Sixers by nine points (20-11) on second chances.
The Knicks have three guys with more than 10 offensive rebounds in the playoffs: Robinson, Towns and … Jordan Clarkson.
Clarkson is a skinny, 6-foot-5 guard, and he’s averaged just 13.6 minutes in the postseason. But he’s suddenly turned into Dennis Rodman. He did grab 4.9% of available offensive boards in the regular season, easily the highest rate of his career.
But Clarkson’s offensive rebounding percentage in the playoffs (11.0%) is more than double that, and it ranks 11th among the 144 players who’ve averaged at least 10 minutes per game.
Clarkson’s second of two offensive boards on Friday was a loose-ball on the perimeter, but his first was in a crowded paint. Landry Shamet missed a 3-pointer early in the second quarter, and Clarkson out-jumped Embiid to tap the ball out to Jose Alvarado, who drained a second-chance 3 that gave the Knicks the lead for good:
The Knicks have been the best rebounding team in the playoffs by a healthy margin, and they can complete the sweep in Game 4 on Sunday (3:30 ET, ABC).
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John Schuhmann has covered the NBA for more than 20 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Bluesky.
