NBA Basketball

2026-02-03 - New York Knicks at Washington Wizards

A Sports Betting Pick by FirstDown

New York Knicks @ Washington Wizards
United States : NBA Basketball
Tuesday 3rd February 2025 - Scheduled 7pm
12am (British Time)

Preview

The trade deadline is coming up on Thursday and there will be plenty of talk in New York in the lead up to that moment about whether a Championship chasing team will take a big leap and look to bring in another superstar.

Giannis Antetoukounmpo's future has long been a discussion and the New York Knicks (31-18) had looked to make a deal with the Milwaukee Bucks in the off-season.

Those never really got off the ground, but once again the star player looks to have made it clear he would like to explore a trade and reports continue to indicate that his first choice is New York. Unfortunately for the Knicks, trades made in the last couple of years have limited the options they have to offer to the Bucks and so this is a story that will run to the wire.

Credit has to be given to the players that have been most linked as being part of any trade to leave the Knicks as they continue to push New York, who are second in the Eastern Conference standings. After coming so close to reaching the NBA Finals last year, the Knicks will be under pressure to at least do that in June and the team have won six in a row to build some momentum.

The Knicks are big favourites when they visit the Washington Wizards (13-35) on Tuesday, but the home team have won three of the last four games and will look to be competitive. In recent times, New York have dominated this rivalry and the Wizards remain a team in transition, even having shown some real competitive spirit over the last week.

Slowing the New York Knicks down Offensively is going to be a big challenge for the Washington Wizards and the key is going to be to get out and try and put some pressure on the three point shooters. During this winning run, the Knicks have proven to be very productive shooting the ball from the outside and they are also getting a healthy production from the bench.

Avoiding distractions from trade talks has been important for the Knicks, but the scheduling spot might be more of an obstacle to overcome mentally in this one. Following this game, the Knicks play the Denver Nuggets and Detroit Pistons and that makes the spread look pretty big, despite the obvious Offensive qualities of New York.

Getting within the number will come down to how well the Wizards can play on the Offensive side of the court and they are averaging 113 points per game in the last five since failing to hit triple digits. However, they have to accept that this New York team have just turned things on Defensively having been criticised for some of those performances during the course of the regular season and only opponent during this six game winning run have managed to score more than 100 points against the Knicks.

Washington have some young, talented players on the roster, but they have been a little inefficient with their shooting in recent games. However, they have been pretty good at landing the three point shot and that is going to determine whether they can keep this one competitive against one of the leading contenders to win it all.

New York have covered the last couple of times they have been asked to lay double digits as a favourite.

They also won by 17 points when facing the Wizards earlier in the regular season, but the upcoming schedule and the continued trade talk could see key players sitting if the Knicks have a big lead.

This could allow the backdoor to remain open for the home underdog to stay within the mark set.

Prediction

It is hard to oppose a quality team with momentum, but this may be too many points and the Wizards may do just enough in the Fourth Quarter to make the points valuable in the final outcome.