Knicks–Nets rivalry

The Knicks–Nets rivalry is a crosstown rivalry between New York City's two National Basketball Association (NBA) teams: the New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets. Both teams compete in Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. The New York Knicks were established in 1946 as one of the charter franchises of the NBA, and have been based at Madison Square Garden in Midtown Manhattan since 1968. The Nets were established in 1967 as a member of the now-defunct American Basketball Association, and joined the NBA in 1976. They have been based at Barclays Center in Brooklyn since 2012, though have played in the New York metropolitan area their entire existence.

The rivalry began in 1976 when the Nets joined the NBA as part of the ABA–NBA merger. At the time, the team was known as the New York Nets and played at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in suburban Long Island. The team became the New Jersey Nets the following season when they relocated to suburban New Jersey, playing temporarily in Piscataway at Rutgers University before moving to Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford in 1981, their home until 2010. The Nets played their final two seasons in New Jersey at Prudential Center in downtown Newark. The rivalry became an intra-city series when the Nets relocated to Brooklyn in 2012.

When the Nets played in New Jersey, the rivalry had several nicknames, including the Turnpike Classic, The Function at the Junction, Battle of the Hudson River, and The War Between the States.

After the Nets' move to Brooklyn, due to the close proximity of the two teams and the overall histories of Brooklyn and Manhattan, media outlets have dubbed the rivalry the Battle of New York, Battle of the Boroughs, or Clash of the Boroughs. The two teams have met in the playoffs three times over the course of their history, with the most recent meeting in 2004.