The 1947–48 New York Knicks season was the second season for the team in the

Basketball Association of America The Basketball Association of America (BAA) was a professional basketball league in North America, founded in 1946. Following its third season, 1948–49, the BAA merged with the National Basketball League (United States), National Basketball Lea ...

(BAA), which later merged with the National Basketball League to become the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

. The Knicks finished in second place in the Eastern Division with a 26–22 record and qualified for the BAA Playoffs. In the

first round First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

, New York was eliminated by the Baltimore Bullets in a best-of-three series, two games to one. Carl Braun was the team's scoring leader during the season. At the 1947 BAA draft, the Knicks selected Dick Holub in the first round, with the fifth overall pick. The Knicks also selected

Wataru Misaka Wataru Misaka (December 21, 1923 – November 20, 2019) was an American professional basketball player. A point guard of Japanese descent, he broke a color barrier in professional basketball by being the first non-white player and the first ...

, who made the team's final roster and became "the first person of color to play in modern professional basketball", just months after the

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

color line had been broken by the

Brooklyn Dodgers The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1883 as the Brooklyn Grays. In 1884, it became a member of the American Association as the Brooklyn Atlantics before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brook ...

Jackie Robinson Jack Roosevelt Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) was an American professional baseball player who became the first Black American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. Robinson broke the Baseball color line, ...

. Misaka was cut after playing only three games with the team. The 1947–48 season was the first as New York's head coach for

Joe Lapchick Joseph Bohomiel Lapchick (April 12, 1900 – August 10, 1970) was an American professional basketball player, mostly known for playing with the Original Celtics in the 1920s and 1930s. He is commonly regarded as the best center of his era, ove ...

, who had previously held the same position for college basketball's St. John's; he had been hired in March 1947. The Knicks had a 13–13 record in the first 26 games of the

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

before going on an eight-game winning streak from January 28 to February 11. However, New York won only four of its final 12 regular season contests. In game one of the first round of the playoffs, held in Baltimore, the Bullets defeated the Knicks 85–81 behind a 34-point performance by Connie Simmons. The Knicks evened the series at one victory apiece by winning the second game 79–69 in New York, as four players scored more than 10 points. The win forced a decisive third game back in Baltimore, which the Knicks lost 84–77. Simmons led the Bullets with 22 points, while Chick Reiser added 21. The Bullets went on to win the

1948 BAA Finals The 1948 BAA Finals was the championship round of the Basketball Association of America's 1947–48 season. The Philadelphia Warriors of the Eastern Division faced the Baltimore Bullets of the Western Division, with Philadelphia having home c ...

Draft

Roster

Regular season

Season standings

Record vs. opponents

Game log

Playoffs

, - align="center" bgcolor="#ffcccc" , 1 , March 27 , @

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

L 81–85
,

Bud Palmer John Shove "Bud" Palmer (born John Palmer Flynn; September 14, 1921 – March 19, 2013) was an American professional basketball player and sportscaster. He was a member of the New York Knicks during the team's first three seasons in the Basketbal ...

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W 79–69
,

(18) , Madison Square Garden III , 1–1 , - align="center" bgcolor="#ffcccc" , 3 , April 1 , @

L 77–84
, Sid Tanenbaum (18) , Baltimore Coliseum , 1–2 , -

Awards and records

* Carl Braun, All-BAA Second Team

Transactions

Free agency

Additions

Subtractions

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1947-48 New York Knicks season New York Knicks seasons

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

New York Knicks The New York Knickerbockers, shortened and more commonly referred to as the New York Knicks, are an American professional basketball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of Manhattan. The Knicks compete in the Na ...

1940s in Manhattan