The New York Knicks are coming off one of the most dominant stretches in NBA postseason history. They swept the Philadelphia 76ers, outscoring them by 89 points—the second-largest margin ever in an NBA second-round series—after closing out their first-round series with a historic 51-point blowout of the Atlanta Hawks.

The Knicks last played on Sunday, May 10, and fans are wondering if their team will lose momentum after the full week off. While the Detroit Pistons and Cleveland Cavaliers duked it out in a physical series that the Cavs won in seven games on Sunday night, the Knicks sat at home awaiting their next opponent.

“It’s good for recovery, but mentally, I’m watching the games just waiting to get back out there,” Knicks forward Josh Hart said in a press conference last week. “It’s a little long.”

The data, however, debunks the notion that the Knicks’ rust will be a factor in the conference finals. Since the modern NBA playoff format was instituted in 1984, there have been 65 series in which one team came in with at least five days off while their opponent had just one day of rest. The better-rested team had a 48-17 record in those series.

If rust was a concern, then teams returning from an extended break should struggle—particularly in Game 1s, before regaining their footing—but that’s not the case. The better-rested teams, as previously defined, have gone 42-23 in Game 1s with an average point differential of +6.8—nearly identical to their 44-21 record with an average margin of +5.5 in Game 2s of those same series.

Many of these were heavily favored in the series by sportsbooks after racking up early playoff wins. Still, a $100 bet on the better-rested team in each of those series would have yielded a positive return of $222 total (roughly $3 per series), per historic odds from Covers.com, meaning that those teams ever-so-slightly overperformed relative to their expectation.  

Narrowing down to only teams that also had home-court advantage, as the Knicks do against the Cavaliers, the record is a stellar 39-3. In the conference finals specifically, higher-seeded teams that meet the aforementioned rest criteria are 10-0. It stands to reason that further into the grind of the postseason, a rest advantage is even more valuable.

The three higher-seeded teams that lost in the second round after a long hiatus are:

  • 2021 Utah Jazz (five days off) lose to Los Angeles Clippers (one day off), 4-2
  • 1995 Phoenix Suns (six days off) lose to Houston Rockets (one day off), 4-3
  • 1989 New York Knicks (six days off) lose to Chicago Bulls (one day off after “The Shot”), 4-2

The overall results are similar even if you slice the data differently. For instance, if we widen the criteria to include instances in which the opponent had one or two days of rest, then the better-rested team still wins 62 out of the 87 series. If we narrow the definition to a series in which a team had an entire week off while the other had just one day of rest, the better-rested teams emerge with an even stronger 26-6 series record.

The sample sizes are too small to determine with statistical significance that extra rest is an advantage, but the numbers look good for the Knicks.

Furthermore, stars are getting injured during the postseason more frequently than prior eras of NBA history, so extra recovery time is crucial. Forward OG Anunoby missed Games 3 and 4 against Philadelphia with a hamstring injury sustained in Game 2, and he is expected to return for the conference finals. Anunoby has averaged 21.5 points per game in the postseason, shooting an outrageously efficient 67% on 2-pointers and 54% on 3-pointers.

The potential downside of a long layoff has been a hot topic in baseball ever since MLB expanded its playoff field in 2022, awarding first-round byes to the top-two seeds in each league. Higher seeds that got byes are just 9-7 in the division series under the new format despite having a superior regular season record and home-field advantage over their opponents. 

Baseball is a very different sport than basketball. Repetition and muscle memory may be greater factors in MLB, while wear and tear may be more of a factor in basketball, a sport in which starters typically run two to three miles over the course of each game.

“The fact that we’re sitting here talking about this is absolutely crazy,” former NBA player P.J. Tucker said on ESPN’s Get Up. “I don’t think any team in NBA history has ever said that … we’re resting too long.”