Shortly after the Detroit Pistons closed out their regular season on Sunday, the NBA revealed that Game 1 against the New York Knicks would take place on Saturday, April 19. The game will tip-off at 6 PM ET.
On Wednesday morning, following the first set of NBA Play-In games, the league revealed the rest of the schedule for the round one battle between the Pistons and the Knicks.
For the Knicks, they are entering their third playoff run in a row. Back in 2020-2021, the Knicks ended a seven-year playoff drought under Tom Thibodeau during his first year with the team. New York lost in the first round to the Atlanta Hawks 4-1.
The following year, the Knicks ended the season with a 37-45 record, missing the playoffs once again. Since then, the Knicks have become regulars in the NBA postseason. Over the past two seasons, they’ve cracked a spot in the playoffs and made it past the first round.
Both times, New York came up short before the Eastern Conference Finals. This season, the Knicks have gone all in with their roster-building, creating a top-heavy squad that’s built for the playoffs. It will be put to the test against a young and scrappy Detroit Pistons team that’s ending its own postseason drought.
Saturday will be the Pistons’ first playoff game since the start of the 2020s decade. When the Pistons made the playoffs last in 2018-2019, they came up short against the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round, losing in sweeping fashion.
Detroit hopes to continue shocking the basketball world this month as they head into a playoff run that not many expected after they achieved just 14 wins one season ago. As the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference, the Pistons have a shot at an upset against a team they’ve defeated three out of four times during the regular season.
