The Philadelphia 76ers beat the New York Knicks 98-93 on Friday night, handing New York its fourth loss of the season. Philadelphia moved the ball freely around its NBA Cup-adorned court while the Knicks struggled to keep pace, a reversal of how the reigning champions dominated the second round of last season’s playoffs, when they won 15 of their final 16 games, including 13 straight.
This time, the Knicks could not take over Xfinity Mobile Arena. Their usual sources of offense went quiet. Josh Hart, Miles McBride and Jalen Brunson did not hit the 3-pointers that typically follow good ball movement. Instead, Tyrese Maxey drove down the lane for an easy dunk. Sixers fans chanted “MVP” for Maxey, and they drowned out the Knicks fans who made the trip down I-95. LeBron James celebrated after a tip-in sealed the win, soaking in the atmosphere of a rivalry he has just joined. Hart left the floor with a bloody bruise on his freshly braided head.
A Spring That Has Lost Its Ease
If “easy” described the Knicks’ spring, they have not known a moment of ease since. Off the court, the team has faced headlines about contract extension talks for its stars being paused until the end of the season, along with a championship ring controversy. On the court, New York has posted a 3-4 record, ranks 22nd in offense and has shot 35.7% from 3-point range, slightly above league average.
The Knicks often look like two different teams within the same night, sometimes within the same quarter. In the past, when they launched one of their devastating runs of high-powered offense and suffocating defense, opponents would cower. Momentum would build, and it felt almost inevitable that everything would go New York’s way. That feeling was a massive factor in their playoff run, which included a 14.9-point differential.
Now, opponents simply wait out the Knicks, knowing an opening will eventually come.
“One thing I see, when we get those runs, we start to look like the team we’ve been in the past. [Then] we get a little comfortable,” Brunson said after the Knicks’ 111-102 loss to the Orlando Magic on Oct. 25. “We’ve got to continue to put our foot on the gas and execute like we did last year.”
Coach Mike Brown did not deny that his team has started lethargically. His task of guiding this group to a repeat title is already difficult. The parity era has produced eight champions in the past eight years, the longest such stretch in NBA history. Only last season’s Thunder even made it out of the second round while pursuing a title defense.
The slow start could reflect the competition catching up to the Knicks, or the uncertainty surrounding player contracts could be taking a human toll. Brown, to his credit, is focusing on the long game rather than the panic that can set in after a rough start.
“This is a new season. It’s a new team, and we’re going to have challenges in front of us,” Brown said. “It’s like climbing a mountain. You know, sometimes you go 100 yards, but you might get knocked back 5 yards.
“You regroup as a team, and you figure out how to keep going forward the right way by making sure we embrace the process.”
Hart Is the Emotional Center
It is not unusual to see Hart stewing after a bad game or a bad stretch. More than his buddy-cop partnership with Brunson, Hart serves as the emotional center of the Knicks, a role he has held since he arrived in 2023 at the trade deadline.
When the Knicks lost three straight games late last season, capped by a 17-point road loss to the Rockets in Houston, Hart called it out. He declared that the next night in Memphis was a must-win game.
“We’re not going in the right direction,” he said that evening.
The Knicks responded by winning their next five games before resting their regulars in the season finale, setting the stage for their dominant playoff run.
Hart does not shy away from uncomfortable truths. With his contract status up in the air, though, some wonder whether he will hesitate if a problem arises.
“I guarantee you, I’m going to be sitting here rock bottom,” Hart said. “I don’t think I’m ever going to be on my high horse, either.
“We’re in New York. Everything rides on the next game. We go on a 10-game winning streak and the next game we lose, they’re ready to burn the place down. We know what it is. It’s the tough part of being in New York.”
Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla, whose team handed the Knicks their second loss of the season, understands how hard it is to move past a defeat.
“I don’t think the psychological wars ever end after a game, I think it goes on for you as long as you’re in it,” Mazzulla said. “Every team brings in scars from the past.”
Searching for Answers on Offense
Brown has pointed to on-ball defense, indecision on offense and players standing around when plays break down as the causes of the slow start. According to NBA.com, the Knicks trail only the Houston Rockets and Charlotte Hornets in how often they take shots late in the shot clock, with four seconds or less remaining. They shoot just 28.8% in those situations, which ranks behind only the Portland Trail Blazers in efficiency. Last season, New York was the best team in the league in those moments.
Usually, late-clock possessions belong to Brunson, as they did so often in the playoffs. The magic has not appeared yet this season.
The Knicks also have not come back from big deficits the way they did last season, when they rallied from double-digit deficits in six playoff games. The biggest was a 29-point comeback against the San Antonio Spurs in Game 4 of the Finals.
Have those improbable comebacks lulled the Knicks into a false sense of security? Will they dig a hole too deep to climb out of, and what does it cost to play that way on a consistent basis?
“I’ve said in the past it’s important to learn from wins; obviously, you learn from losses as well,” Brunson said Friday in Philadelphia. “There’s been plenty of times we learned from being down what we can do. And in that same game, made adjustments to where we weren’t down anymore. We have to put a full 48 minutes together.”
The 76ers, a team still building chemistry after acquiring James and Jaylen Brown in the offseason, exposed what appears to be the Knicks’ kryptonite: speed.
“Sometimes it takes us a little longer to get into the game. Whether that’s the flow, whether that’s fatigue,” Hart said. “Not relying on these comebacks because it’s taxing.
“We all feel the fatigue. We’ve got to fight through it. It’s six games in, we’ve got to find a way to get our bodies ready to play. Mentally we’re there; we’ve got to find it physically.”
When Brunson was asked about Hart’s comments, he dismissed them with a joke about Hart’s age.
Scars Across the Roster
Brunson and Hart are not the only players carrying the strain. Swingman Mikal Bridges needed four games before he connected on a 3-pointer and seven games before he attempted his first free throw. Finals MVP Brunson is shooting at career-low marks from the field and from 3-point range.
Brown is also juggling Andre Drummond and James Wiseman as backup centers while trying to replace Mitchell Robinson. Robinson signed a free-agent deal with the Celtics after the cost-conscious Knicks did not retain him. New York has felt the loss, especially in efficiency. Robinson shot 72% from the field in 2025-26. Drummond hit 47% last season and is shooting just 46% so far this season. Wiseman is 0-for-5 from the field.
McBride said the responsibility to speak up does not rest only with Brunson and Hart. He described a team that is self-aware and mature enough to have difficult conversations.
“It’s open,” McBride said. “Anybody can step up, whether it’s the [bench] guys or starters. That’s the thing about this team, our chemistry is so good and we have a lot of trust because we see each other putting forth a lot of work.”
Brown is not afraid to speak up himself. When the Knicks’ season reached a breaking point last spring, down 2-1 to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round, Brown challenged Karl-Anthony Towns to get the ball more and play with more aggression. That shift turned around the team’s fortunes and led to a record playoff winning streak.
“I’m going to keep it real,” Brown said in early October. “If there’s something in front of us, I’m not a fan of having an elephant in the room. I’ll address it. I don’t care if it’s Jalen or KAT or OG [Anunoby].”
The Knicks will not catch anyone off guard this time. Their 3-4 record has them ranked No. 8 in the East.
Brown evaluates the season in five-game increments, a way to keep perspective. Brunson believes the first month or so of games will be revealing.
“I think everyone in the East knows each other,” Towns said. “This is our third year now with each other, so you know, it’s rare. That’s one of our advantages.”
He compared the situation to LeBron James joining the Miami Heat in the summer of 2010, and how that move changed the tone of the East for the entire decade.
“At the end of the day, people knew, when LeBron and the big three were there, you had to go out there and beat them,” Towns said. “Everyone brings their best against the New York Knicks. You’ve got to protect the jersey, the city at all costs.”
The Ring Question
Brown kept a steely face and gave nothing away when asked whether he had received his championship ring. The question is the latest in a string of unflattering headlines since the team’s title in June.
More than a week had passed since news broke that New York assistant coaches had not received their rings on opening night. Some employees who had yet to receive theirs were sent a phishing email from Madison Square Garden security stating that their “Employee Championship Ring is here.”
“I’m not going to talk about that ring stuff, as you can imagine,” Brown said, despite speculation that the ring box he was handed was either empty or held someone else’s ring. “I’m not going to get into any of that.”
That reticence fits Brown’s character. In his first year as Knicks coach, his gift has been avoiding unnecessary waves while leading the team to its first championship in 53 years.
Brown knows the path to another ring will be even harder. He saw it firsthand as an assistant with the Golden State Warriors, who added Kevin Durant to a team that had won 73 regular-season games the season before. The Warriors cruised through the 2017 playoffs, winning their first 15 games, but the following season they were nearly knocked out of the conference finals by the Rockets.
The NBA’s rules have since made it harder for teams to establish and maintain dominance.
Even more telling, the teams that have repeated since the millennium have been led by James, Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and Stephen Curry, players on the short list of all-time greats.
Mazzulla understands the road Brown is traveling. After a 64-win season that ended with a 16-3 run through the playoffs and the 2024 title, Mazzulla’s Celtics followed with 61 wins in 2025. They entered the playoffs as defending champions many believed had a strong chance to repeat.
Instead, they ran into the Knicks in the Eastern Conference semifinals, and the wear from the previous few seasons began to show. Jayson Tatum was the biggest casualty, tearing his right Achilles in Game 4 in New York as he desperately tried to pull the Celtics back into a series they had fallen behind in.
“That’s the competitive realm you’re in. Once you’re there, you have to trick yourself as if you’ve never been there,” Mazzulla said. “But at the same time, two years away from that, every loss is more painful than it was three years ago. You have to treat yourself as if you’re more desperate than everybody else.”
The Cost of Deep Runs
Extra playoff games add up, and so does the breakneck pace of today’s NBA. That may have played a part in the fate of the 2025 champion Thunder, who have four rotation players dealing with major injuries that could derail their season. Like Mazzulla’s Celtics, who reached the Finals in 2022 before their breakthrough title in 2024, the Thunder have stacked multiple deep playoff runs. The Knicks face the same problem.
Brunson has played 61 playoff games since arriving in New York, 37 of them in the past two seasons. Hart has the same numbers. Anunoby joined the Knicks three years ago and has played 44 postseason games with the franchise and 71 overall, dating back to his days in Toronto. Towns reached the conference finals with Minnesota the season before he was traded to New York, giving him 53 games over the past three postseasons.
That bill could come due sooner than anyone expects.
The Knicks are in contract limbo with three key players after tabling all contract extension talks on Oct. 9. Owner James Dolan said this summer that New York would not dip into the punitive second apron to keep the team together.
Hart has a team option, and on media day he said there had been no discussions about a new deal. Towns is eligible for a four-year, $276 million extension. Before talks were halted, the Knicks’ offer stood at $200 million, which would represent a pay cut from his current salary of four years and $220.4 million.
Towns hoped for a contract extension at the start of last season and did not get one. The disappointment was quiet, and he played through an up-and-down regular season as he and Brown struggled to get on the same page. Then it clicked in the postseason.
“I mean, we did it all last year,” Towns said. “You’re in New York, you’ve got to play through distractions; that’s what comes with playing here. There’s a lot of pressure, a lot of noise.
“But as long as this locker room, which has shown it can do, stays together and continues to just believe and fall into each other when things get tough, we can do something special.”
Towns pointed to the Knicks’ struggles after they won the NBA Cup last season, including an ugly 2-9 stretch from Dec. 31 to Jan. 19, as proof they are built to handle adversity.
“We didn’t look our best version, and we heard about it,” Towns said. “This team continued to fall into each other instead of splitting away and … separating. We got closer and closer.”
In Philadelphia, Towns said: “We have to find a way to be that magical team we were last year. You don’t want to wait to find that magic. Lightning don’t strike twice.”