Detroit Pistons vs New York Knicks Prediction, Odds and Picks for Today, 04/21/25

Saturday’s Game 1 between the Pistons and Knicks was one of the most entertaining games of the opening weekend of the NBA Playoffs, and it featured a furious New York comeback in the 4th quarter en route to a double digit victory. In my writing about this series prior to Game 1, I mentioned the youth of this Pistons team, one whose best player doesn’t have any kind of postseason experience at this level. Madison Square Garden is about as difficult of an environment to throw Cade Cunningham into for his first playoff game, and we saw that inexperience shine through for Cunningham and the rest of the Pistons when things completely unraveled in the 4th quarter. Monday’s game is a completely different animal for both teams, as the Pistons no longer have the element of surprise and the Knicks should be able to tweak their gameplan toward what worked (playing in transition, utilizing multiple bigs to hold up on the glass, etc) and what didn’t work on both sides of the ball. Much like we saw for most of the first game, I’m expecting Detroit to stick to its gameplan defensively by sending double-teams at Brunson late in the shot clock, as the point guard was excellent against single coverage looks when those were presented in Game 1. However, Brunson is also extremely adept at getting two feet in the paint and kicking the ball out to open shooters, which should mean plenty of chances for OG Anunoby and Karl-Anthony Towns to stay hot from distance, along with good looks for a struggling Mikal Bridges. With Cunningham facing a difficult matchup against Anunoby and the Knicks perimeter defense, I’ll certainly trust Brunson and the ancillary pieces on New York compared to Detroit’s personnel, which gives the Pistons a more limited offensive capacity. 

As I mentioned in my preview for the opening game of the series, teams that tend to win games in the playoff also cover spreads. In fact, after this past weekend’s 7-1 ATS record for straight up winners, they are now on a 5-year run of close to a 90% winning percentage against the spread in the postseason. With that in mind, I’ll continue to follow this trend and lay the points with the Knicks in a game where New York should be more focused from start to finish following Saturday’s scare. 

Pistons vs Knicks prediction: Knicks -6.5 available at time of publishing. Playable at that number.

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