Welcome to the curler coaster journey that’s the 2025-26 Knicks season, a journey starting with a free-fall from all-time highs: the post-Jap Convention Finals firing of head coach Tom Thibodeau, coinciding with the hiring of Mike Brown.
The Knicks haven’t fairly been the identical ever since, and despite the fact that eight gamers from final 12 months’s roster are again chasing a title this time round, the group in orange and blue seems to be unrecognizable.
Their third quarter in Cleveland might have been their worst of the final three years. It was definitely the bottom level offensively for a crew that’s taken its lumps adapting to Brown and his teaching philosophies.
These philosophies have been presupposed to generate high quality offense and provides start to the kind of aggressive protection able to constantly creating transition alternatives.
The Knicks had lapses on each ends of their 109-94 loss to the Cavaliers on the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse on Tuesday. Within the third quarter, they shot 3-of-24 from the sphere and 1-of-12 from downtown for 11 factors popping out of halftime.
The 40-point quarters appear to be a lifetime in the past. The Knicks managed simply 40 factors within the second half towards the Cavaliers. They shot 10-of-37 from behind the arc on the evening.
Eleven factors ties the Knicks for his or her second-lowest scoring quarter since 2020. It’s the fewest factors they’ve scored in a interval since buying Karl-Anthony Cities and Mikal Bridges by way of commerce two summers in the past.
Each of these acquisitions appear misplaced in Brown’s new offense. Bridges shot 6-of-17 for 18 factors and missed numerous evenly contested layups on the rim. Cities, who scored 25 and 28 factors in his final two video games, took simply 5 photographs — 4 within the first half, one within the fourth quarter — and logged 14 factors and 7 rebounds.
And Brunson, in a giant spot, in a matchup seemingly skewing in his favor towards a Cavs backcourt with James Harden and Donovan Mitchell, shot simply 6-of-19 for 20 factors on the evening. The Knicks have been outscored by 20 factors in Brunson’s 36 minutes on the ground.
Brunson scored one level and missed all six of his photographs within the third quarter, marking solely the second time in his Knicks profession he’s taken 5 or extra photographs and completed scoreless in 1 / 4.
Mitchell led all scorers with 23 factors on 5-of-18 taking pictures, and Harden added 20 factors and 4 assists. Jarrett Allen scored 19 factors and 10 rebounds, and the Cavs made it 9 wins of their final 10 video games with Tuesday’s victory over the Knicks.
And now, just like the Detroit Pistons, the Cavaliers have all the boldness in heading into the playoffs, ought to the ever-so fickle NBA standings tilt in direction of a Cleveland-New York collection. The East’s second by fifth seeds (the Celtics, Knicks, Cavs and Raptors) solely separated by 3.5 video games, which implies a No. 2 vs. No. 3 second-round collection can’t be dominated out of the equation.
The Knicks are actually 2-1 on the 12 months towards the Cavaliers, their solely loss coming after the trades that despatched Darius Garland (Los Angeles Clippers) and De’Andre Hunter (Sacramento Kings) out whereas bringing Harden, Dennis Schroder and Keon Ellis in. They’re 0-3 towards the Detroit Pistons with a mean margin of defeat of 28 factors and 2-1 towards the Boston Celtics for a 4-5 file towards the Jap Convention’s top-four seeds.
The Knicks are additionally 0-1 towards the San Antonio Spurs (not counting the NBA Cup Remaining victory), 1-0 towards the Houston Rockets and 1-0 towards the Denver Nuggets out west. They haven’t but performed the reigning champion Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder.
The Knicks are actually 1-1 on their three-game street journey after Sunday’s victory in Chicago over the Bulls. Subsequent up: two days off, and a few much-needed observe, earlier than a matchup in Milwaukee with the Bucks on Friday.
