The Knicks head to Chicago to take on the somehow undefeated Chicago Bulls.
There is no way that the Bulls are this good (although, for their sake, it is nice that their #11 overall pick from last season is at least playing better now than he did last season), so hopefully the full-strength Knicks take them down.
That, of course, is burying the lede a bit, as yes, Mitch Robinson will be making his season debut tonight, as the Knicks’ starting center! Awesome! A full-strength lineup (welcome back, Deuce!), so let’s see how Brown handles the rotations.
Let’s go, Knicks!
58 isn’t looking as great!
133 replies on “2025-26 Game Thread: Knicks @ Bulls: Mitch Season Opener”
MITCH MITCH
DEUCE DEUCE
Excited to be there in the flesh to see Mitch’s debut!
a win tonite would really go a long way in quelling the initial early-season nerves of this fanbase.
a loss, not so much
The article about Mikel helping young players linked to by the newsbot was a good read
sixers/celtics kicking off the sports’ night…
main event of the night: mitch and deuce return to the lineup…
looking forward to seeing if the jays can close out what looked to be sure fire series champ dodgers…
friday night knicks on league pass sub…each game it’ll be a search to find where the broadcast is at…
I haven’t seen much of Grimes since he left the Knicks, but it doesn’t look like his finishing at the rim is that different…
Luke Garza is a large hustle bunny
It’d be nice if the 76ers would stop drafting all-star shooting guards every year
So nice to see Mitch making things happen.
Looks like we might be reverting to the mean, three-point-wise…
Mitch makes immediate impact and OG finishing at the rim confidently. And from 3.
Nice.
Nice start by the Knicks.
These early season rotations man. I know Brown’s still experimenting, but I’ll never get used to Shamet coming in before Deuce and JC. Hell..sometimes even Kolek gets in before those two
Ha! Fawkin facts! AND Grimes has been REALLY good as a Sixer
Deuce should have come in instead of Shamet, I agree.
Mitch leaving after 3 min is interesting – I’d guess Brown wants to stagger him and KAT as much as possible.
It is no longer a nice start by the Knicks…
Dammit Shammit!! Gotta bag those!
Helping off a three point shooter a pass away is not a play I enjoy on defense.
Brunson-Deuce-Shamet-Hart-Yabu is a weird ass lineup.
Shamet is singlehandedly keeping the Bulls in the game.
Bad start for Shamet but he plays like he’s found a home as a Knick. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets a multi-year deal this offseason. I’m becoming a fan of his game
I miss Thibs’ 8 man rotation…
Yabubelly, Hart, Shamet is a 3PT liability lineup. Deuce and Captain can’t make up the deficit.
Yabu made his first and only 3 point attempt and Shamet was 42% from the line last year.
Shamet is in the NBA for his shooting. Liability, eh
Is it too early to wonder if the Knicks are gonna win another game this season?
Clarkson needs to bring immediate heat like a Microwave.
Josh Hart shouldn’t be playing.
We need a poll: how long is Brown going to use the “we’re still learning the system” excuse…like 20-25 games or so?
Well we’ve re-regressed back to the new mean from three. 29%
The more this team plays together the worse it looks.
seemed like Kolek was fouled 2x in last 10 seconds
Make that 30-35 games
Getting beat on the boards and making no shots is not a great recipe for success
That Bulls dance number was not good. Say what you will about the Knicks basketball team, but at least the Knicks City Dancers are decent.
The only Thing I’m going to get on Brown for in his first couple of games is the constant use of Hart.
I like playing the bench a lot, but I have a lot of questions about the lineups he’s using, and the super short rotations. They look a bit lost.
Smells blowout tonight. As soon as the opposing team makes some adjustments, we are done. Period.
For the sake of principle, and honestly hoping I am wrong, I will wait another ten-fifteen games before calling out Fizdale 2.0.
Clarkson’s a joke.
🤡🤡🤡🤡
If we ever get a defensive stop it’s by sheer accident
At this rate Brunson is going to want to play with Giannis, except in Milwaukee.
At least we’ve got Jalen
Well, this is not the team Giannis wanted to come to, for sure.
Thibs must be enjoying watching this.
Brown needs a 20 game ride
But he has to get wins and the team has to show improvement in that time
We have very few defenders and our #1, #2 and main bench scorer are all bad. It’s hard to create decent defensive lineups when Leon seems more interested in offense.
To the extent our offense was an issue last year, you could argue we weren’t using our players properly. On defense, we had clear cut definable problems but our off season moves made us worse defensively. There was a reason I was so moody. There’s only so much Mitch can do.
Maybe this is a strategic loss, since it’s a Cup game they want to make sure they don’t advance so they can get 2 easy extra regular season games!
Could bring back Delon and cut one of the end of bench guys
Hart was particularly awful. Got beat on D multiple times
Hart shouldn’t be playing . He should get the surgery
just tuned in, we’re down by – a lot…yikes…
the bulls do not appear to be impressed with our team’s pre-season ranking…
nor do they seem all that concerned about all the top shelf talent we’ve accumulated…
nba today is a young man’s game…we got too many “old” guys on our team…
If Brown tanks this team this year at least they keep their pick
https://www.tankathon.com/
I can assure you that this is even less fun live
Just survived trick or treating.
Not only did I survive, I won Halloween.
My costume was 67 and I felt like a celebrity. Took dozens of photos with people.
In fact, someone random who knows me sent me a photo a friend of theirs had taken of me. She had no idea who I was. Just thought it was funny.
Did I go viral?
I think I am going to rest on my laurels and go straight to bed.
Sure elite young legs can help, but this team is in its 5th game. I don’t think their energy is gone. This is learning the system issues and learning what players need to play
I will wait until after 20 games, but improvement needs to be shown
I’m not disgusted by how we’re adjusting to the new system. I’m not even disgusted by us getting mollywhopped right now. I’m disgusted that Giddey keeps hitting 3’s with that fugly jumper and a bad shooter rep. Yuck. At least Hart’s form looks like it could go in.
Anyways..
Still a lot of basketball to play and plenty of time for the right adjustments and relocation of shooting touch. We’ve seen this team pull of 2nd half comebacks after ugglass starts lol
Also basically all the Knicks main guys are under 30 years old
In a league where guys in their mid thirties are balling . I’m not buying old age
And yet another year where i forget that we observe daylight savings one week before the US. I thought the game was 1 hour later because of this. 🙁
How does the team look?
Bad
Or learning the system/ coach learning what players fit what he wants to do
😂😂😂
So far we forced a timeout 90 secs into the 3rd. Now let’s get this in single digits.
Actually clawing our way back.
Trying to cover the spread
I’m liking Novak commenting the game.
7 pts deficit. Keep grinding, team.
Down by 5…
At least they are trying this quarter.
We have to double the comments, because everybody went to halloween! 😀
Maybe that’s all it is. The players have to care
This foul call better not be overturned.
I fucking hate fake comebacks…
Mike Brown has ADHD. Some of the substitutions are so random.
I am really not liking that Clarkson guy…
This version of Hart or Hart in his current role is more or less unplayable.
We have to keep grinding
I have not checked, but it’s not too imagine that +/- for the season might tell summer kind of story
I’d rather see Tosan Evbuomwan over Hart
Mike Browns goal for Clarkson is probably in the Malik Monk role , but I’m not sure that vision works
These refs have been awful, like big money on Chicago winning awful.
Wind blows across Giddey and it’s a foul. Brunson and others drive hard and no call.
They better overturn this one
Nice to see KAT getting a good call, although it took a review and reversal…
This Dosumnu dude is just eating the Knicks on drives. He’s kind of good. So far he’s 7-8.
Alright, turned it on.
I feel like Dosonmu was someone high on TNFH’s draft board
He was high on mine. I was vocal about him.
Why did Mikal let the ball went out of bounds? I thought he could go get it.
Knicks did get Grimes and McBride in that draft so not bad
There you go Landry
Yeah, Novak is solid
Great D from KAT. He’s so much better in switch.
Mitch not quite prime tonight. Still very happy to see him back.
Every time Bulls drive they are getting the whistle. This is fucking ridiculous
We can’t get past the 5 pt deficit 🙁
Brown keeps changing lineups that are working and surprise it keeps back firing.
Would’ve been so nice if Jalen saw that oop to Mitch sooner
2 pt game 🙂
Two point game…
And it didn’t last long…
MAN that was a late whistle on that charge, but glad it came.
Every time I give up, the Knicks suck me back in. Annoying.
Brown tightening rotation excluding Yabu and Hart is a good thing
LOL. Same here. 😉
Annoying are many of these bullshit 3s Chicago keeps making.
Ok, now it’ll be hard to comeback
Damn, Vuc is spry
Vuc has been double-teaming Jalen, leaving KAT open likes he’s Hart. And KAT is shooting like Hart. Smart call for the Bulls..
MSG crowd better be ready to boo the shit out of this team on Sunday.
KAT is such a horrible defender he actually cannot play center
KAT could have taken it to 1. Then missed another. Now 12 points, pretty much game over.
Though the Bulls are doing dumb stuff to try to get us back into it
Towns with horrendous D and no feel for 3s right now. Should honestly sit a few games.
Dug too big a hole in the first half and couldn’t make consistent stops on D. Team is all over the place now, looking for an identity
KAT worked on nothing over the summer. He looks absolutely dreadful
Wow, they really did try to give us a shot … we just couldn’t make that crucial 3
Took 5 games for this team to kill my excitement for this season and already have me counting down the days until Spring Training begins…
That will be helpful.
KAT has to play because 20 minutes from Mitch isn’t going to cut it
28 other minutes for hukporti?
Nellie got fired when his team was 34-25…
I will take the second half. Without playing great, we were decent on both sides of the floor, mostly because the coach avoided the insane substitutions of the first half.
We are very far from being the great team we want to be, and we are not even a solid, but at least the advertised “growing pains” did not include a humiliating blowout tonight.
I am not optimistic. I just want to give this coach a fair chance before calling him out.
Mike brown isn’t get fired after 5 games
Josh hart being a useless player at the moment doesn’t help
Turning a 19pt halftime deficit into a 10pt loss is not something to be proud of.
All snark aside tonight was easily the most disappointing performance of the season. Brown needs to settle on a 9 man rotation but the sad part is right now it probably shouldn’t include Hart.
Knicks have a back to back Sunday and Monday, I wonder if Mitch and KAT will alternate sitting out a game.
Hart (-) 18 in 15 minutes
Previous game vs Bucks minus 18 as well
Avg 22 minutes a game
27 TS 🫨
Can’t even say he rebounded well. Invisible
Watching Lakers. Luka back . Problem will be the defense , don’t think it works
1. The new offense is more hype than reality.
2. The defense sucks.
3. Mike Brown is not an upgrade over Thibs and most likely is a downgrade.
4. I’m not sure how much Hart has left between his finger, back and knees. It’s possible all the minutes and playing through all the injuries finally caught up to him and we are seeing the beginning of his downside. We have to give it a little more time, but if he’s not the same player this team is not going to be better than last year even with Mitch back.
We had a bad off season. The additions were not good and we replaced Thibs with the wrong coach.
Bondy shared a video he took during a 4th quarter Knicks timeout where Hart was sitting at end of bench with his head down. Can’t imagine what thoughts were going thru his head at the moment cause with how prideful he is this must be killing him right now.
Hart has a messed up Finger, until he gets that fixed hard to say what player he is.
biggest takeaway from the game was that the bulls defense is better than i thought, they shot well, played with confidence, didn’t turn the ball over…
good news, for a second i thought we were 2 – 4 after this game…
bench was terrible, shamet is inconsequential, josh detrimental…yabu and clarkson provided not much…
same team back home sunday night…who knows…
The one thing with Brown – Mikal looks way better under him
So I can’t say everything he is doing is bad
Bulls gave up 125 points..
Neither defense was good
Damn, we should’ve traded KAT while his stock was high.
What did your costume look like, Owen? I need to distract myself with something other than the game (I’ll still put up a post-game thread, though, promise).
Looking at the team stats just like against the Heat this game was basically lost at the FT line.
KAT value on his contract wasn’t that high after last season because he still had the same defensive issues .
Center – can’t protect the rim
Power forward – maybe to slow
Kat will be fine on offense , it’s the defense and his position why teams will avoid him
Bench scoring
Bulls-53
Knicks -21
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