The last two Knicks telecasts — Friday, February 17 vs. the Hornets and Monday, February 20 vs. the Nets — are the highest-rated regular season events on MSG since the network began tracking household ratings at the start of the 1988-89 NBA season. Friday night’s telecast scored a 7.32 Nielsen household rating (540,788 households) and was then topped Monday night when the telecast garnered a 7.34 preliminary Nielsen household rating (542,265 households). The P2+ rating, which measures the number of viewers over the age of two, registered a 3.83 (747,627 total viewers) on Friday night and a preliminary 4.01 (782,764 total viewers) Monday night. The two telecasts peaked with quarter-hour high ratings of 10.02 HH (740,259 households) and 5.22 P2+ (1,018,959 total viewers) between 10:15 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. on Friday night, and 9.02 preliminary HH (666,380 households) and 4.80 preliminary P2+ (936,974 total viewers) between 9:45 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. Monday night. In the New York market on Friday night during primetime (7:00 p.m. — 11:00 p.m.), only ABC’s “20/20” (7.87 HH) and CBS’s “Blue Bloods” (7.33) beat the Knicks telecast on MSG. Both Friday and Monday night’s telecasts outperformed the average rating of every local network broadcast during their time periods. Friday night’s game between 8:00 p.m. and 10:45 p.m. topped ABC (6.43 HH), CBS (6.14 HH), NBC (3.20 HH) and FOX (1.68 HH), while Monday night’s game between 7:30 p.m. and 10:15 p.m. preliminarily beat out NBC (7.06 HH), ABC (5.40 HH), CBS (6.56 HH) and FOX (3.19 HH). Both telecasts topped the previous regular season high of a 6.78 household rating, which occurred 17 years ago with Michael Jordan’s famous “Double Nickel” game on March 28, 1995 when Jordan scored 55 points in his return to Madison Square Garden after his first NBA retirement. Including playoff games, this weekend’s two telecasts were the highest-rated events on MSG since Game 6 of the 2000 Eastern Conference Semifinals when the Knicks defeated the Heat 72-70 at Madison Square Garden (7.85 HH). The highest-rated event ever on MSG was Game 7 of the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals, which delivered a 16.18 household rating. Through the seven games (not including Monday night) on MSG in which Lin has been the starting point guard, the Knicks’ average household rating has increased 138% (4.30 HH; 317,676 households) compared to the previous 20 games (1.81 HH; 133,719 households). With Lin in the starting lineup, the team has scored household ratings of 7.32 HH (February 17 vs. New Orleans), 5.78 HH (February 15 vs. Sacramento), 4.66 HH (February 14 at Toronto), 4.17 HH (February 11 at Minnesota), 3.05 HH (February 10 vs. Los Angeles), 2.41 HH (February 8 at Washington), and 2.68 HH (February 6 vs. Utah). Lin’s presence in the starting lineup has also spurred a 82% increase in the average season-to-date household rating compared to the first 27 games on MSG Network last season (2.46 HH vs. 1.35 HH; 181,740 households vs. 101, 457 households). The seven games in which Lin has started also represents a 75% increase over the average season-to-date household rating (4.30 HH vs. 2.46 HH; 317,676 households vs. 181,740 households).