New York KnicksvsWashington Wizards

The NBA season opens at Madison Square Garden, with both sides playing their first competitive game after a long break. The margin model gives New York an 84.8% win probability and projects a 119-107 scoreline. The split in the underlying numbers is wide: New York won 16 of their last 20 at home, Washington lost 18 of their last 20 on the road.

No league table data is on record for New York, so the home splits carry the weight here: 16 wins from 20 at Madison Square Garden, scoring 116.1 and conceding 103.75 per game. The most recent five games produced a 4-1 record at 104.4 scored and 102 conceded. That scoring figure sits below the home average, though five games is a small sample.

Washington also has no table data on record. Their last 20 road games returned two wins and 18 defeats, with 114.6 points scored and 128 conceded — a differential of roughly minus 13 per game. The last five games were all losses, averaging 111 scored and 127.8 conceded.

Ten meetings are on record, and New York have won eight of them. The points total across the series is 1251-1095 in New York's favour, averaging 234.6 per meeting. Washington's two wins came in October 2024 (118-117) and October 2025, when they won 120-103 at Madison Square Garden.

With no season-long table data available, each side's home or away split can only be read on its own terms. New York's 80% home win rate and Washington's 10% road win rate are the extremes the model is working from. Both are 20-game samples — informative, but not fixed values.

Both teams are opening their season: 116 days since New York's last game, 179 for Washington. That gap gives the model less recent evidence to anchor on, which is consistent with a medium rather than high confidence rating. Washington's road record is the most lopsided single input in the fixture.

The model splits the probabilities at 84.8% home and 15.2% away, with a projected score of 119-107 and an expected margin of 12.1 points. It projects about 225 combined points, below the 234.6 average of the ten recorded meetings. The margin distribution places 55.6% on a New York win by 11 or more and 29.1% on a win by 1-10, with an away win of any size accounting for 15.2%.

The data points one way: an 80% home win rate against a 10% road win rate, an 8-2 series record, and a projected 12-point New York win. Washington's two series victories, one of them at this venue, are the clearest reminder that the projected outcome is not a settled one. With both teams more than 100 days removed from a competitive game, the model's medium confidence is the honest frame.