It was a nice and entertaining game, i agree defense is where we should focus, because the rest is going great. But we could’ve still won it in the end if McCullar, after a great play where he earned a jump ball, sent the ball to a Knicks player instead of a Spurs player. On the road, without Mitch and Hart, although they were also without Wemby in the end.

One thing i’m attributing to this being the regular season, is how weak we are protecting big leads. At first i thought it was because we should cruise the regular season without putting full effort to save the team for when it matters – the playoffs. But i also thought when playing another contender that wouldn’t happen because we would put effort in the game to try to gather data against contenders. Well our lead vaporized quickly yesterday, so now i don’t know if we should be worried or not. I think we should, but that didn’t look like full effort. Maybe it was because Hart was out, as he usually energizes all the team with his non stop hustle, but i’m also afraid this is how we play and we’ll let big leads go away easy in the playoffs too.

On the road, without Mitch and Hart, although they were also without Wemby in the end.

Yeah, the big Spurs comeback was all with Wemby on the bench, so I can’t point to injuries as some solace about this one. They just got beat by a good Spurs team.

Whatever, they beat this same good Spurs team to win the NBA Cup. You’re going to lose some games against good teams. Just make sure you beat all the bad teams and that #1 seed will come soon enough.

One thing that confused me was that the Spurs were irked that Brunson stole the ball at the end of the game to shoot the three. WHY? What if they had fouled him on the three? He would have had a theoretical chance to miss it on purpose and have someone tip it in. UNLIKELY, for sure, but not SO unlikely that it was crazy for him to try.

If they were up 8, okay, then yeah, don’t steal the ball as they’re trying to dribble the clock out, but they weren’t.

You aren’t going to win many games on road letting a guy go 11-16 from 3. Tough night. Move on.

Out top 7 are all really good. Brunson, KAT, Mikal, OG, Hart, Deuce and Mitch.

Obviously Brunson is the best but after that I feel like 2 through 7 are all almost equally important (with OG being probably the second most important guy).

Point being if we’re missing two of those top 7 and we still barely lose to the spurs. I think that means we’re pretty dang good!

Happy New Year to everyone!!!!

KAT picks up a lot of dumb fouls . Needs to pick up his IQ on that end

Also think a better center over Hukporti should be looked into

Happy New Years !

While it’s a road loss to a very good team, the lack of focus, intensity, and grit after Wemby left was troubling. If they learn from it for when games really count then it was worth it.

Missed the second half but watched highlights. Seems like low IQ defense is our biggest weakness, and it’s not isolated to one player. Brunson, Clarkson, and Kolek all had some inexcusable brain farts on Champagnie. I hate to constantly pick on Clarkson but holy shit, dude, how do you run away from a guy who has hit ten threes to cover someone else in the corner? And KAT was a disaster again between his stupid fouls & listless defensive rebounding.

Whatever it’s just one game. But it has the potential to be foreshadowing of our demise.

Annoying loss but my biggest confirmed takeaway: Does anyone here really trust KaT on the defensive end in pnr or against a team with no players he can hide on, in the playoffs? He seems like a smart guy off the court but he is super dumb on the defensive end, just terrible instincts and will repeatedly make the same mistakes with no adjustments. Mitchell Robinson might be the 3rd most important player after Brunson and OG bc of Towns inconsistency against pressure defense on O and his consistently low IQ defensive play. We’re not winning with him manning the middle for extended periods of time or in the 4th with the game on the line.

Brown was pretty direct in post game that the defensive intensity is shite…its not rocket science….its a long season and perhaps they need a few slaps to the collective back of the head to remind them that they can’t coast and rely on the offense (which is what Brown also alluded to in the presser)…teams that can’t impose their will defensively will always be open to getting exposed…especially come playoff time

Happy New Year! I think last night was just one of those games. Not gonna take anything away from it that I didn’t already know. We’ve been living on the edge for a bit, so this was bound to happen.

I’ll be at the game tomorrow, hoping for a bounceback win. Fuck Trae Young!

I’m losing a little faith in Towns. He’s capable of great games under the right conditions, but he can be slowed down on offense and exploited on defense. I’m starting to picture him as more of 3rd option even though he’s going to average more than you’d expect from a 3rd option. I think we may need for Mikal or OG to step up another notch on offense and lower our dependence on Towns. Out of the two, it should be Mikal. He’s more skilled.

Brown was pretty direct in post game that the defensive intensity is shite

It’s both the intensity and the caliber of defensive players we have on the court. It’s going to be hard enough to beat the best teams if we have multiple exploitable players on the court most of the time. It will be impossible if they aren’t giving it their best.

We have so much talent on offense, I think they’ve been getting lazy on defense assuming they can outgun anyone down the stretch of games, but it’s not going to work out like that against other top teams that are also defending at a high level.

In other news it sounds like Mitch isn’t hurt again and the two games off was part of the load management plan which makes me wonder if they did, indeed, intentionally sit Mitch against the spurs so sel y wouldn’t have another opportunity to learn how to play against him.

Happy 2026 everyone! Fingers crossed.

Over the years I’ve been consistently confused by the Knicks not sticking a guy onto an opposing player who has it going — let the other four beat you. Time and again someone gets super-hot, and the team plays the same lackadaisical defense. To me that’s a coach’s failure. Everyone in the arena, and everyone on TV, knew that they needed to bottle up Champagnie (sorry, had to).

Just wanted to whinge that. On to the New Year!

We know we have a good team. The question is how good. Beating down the Nets, Hornets, and Wizards of the world does not prove much. It only makes the W/L column look better. So far, we have split the matchups with pretty much all respectable opponents. We split with the Heat, Magic, Celtics, even the Bucks and Bulls. We won against the Raptors, lost to the Sixers, and we have not yet faced the Pistons. From the Western Conference, we have split the games with Minnesota and the Spurs, and these are the only good teams we have faced so far. No OKC, Houston, Denver, etc.

I am not trying to be Debbie Downer. The Knicks have been playing beautiful basketball at times, and got some good wins, such as the one over the Spurs for the NBA Cup. Our offense looks formidable, while our defense comes at spurts only. Much of the time it is not there. Last night’s game was another example thereof. Again, we are a good team, but how good? This will remain an open question for me until we a) fix our defensive issues and b) prove we can match up well with top opponents. Being top six or seven is not the same as being a contender.

Does anyone here really trust KaT on the defensive end in pnr or against a team with no players he can hide on, in the playoffs?

No. The big problem is that he’s entirely untrustworthy when we’re trying to score the ball. Defensive shortcomings with effort you abide. All world talent with the only guy that can stop him watching from the sidelines stopping and popping a mid range airball in the middle of tight contest “because I’m the guy and I gotta do something” is not good. If he ain’t moving the needle on the offense he definitely is on the defense.

ho ho ho, merry new year…a day to give thanks that a new year has risen…and, we are all still around to see it…

what a spectacular day for college football, and other stuff too i guess…

Rough, last night’s first half showed the optimal performance the Knicks are capable of (without Hart and Mitch )and against Wemby. While it is understandable that the level of play was not sustainable, the drop-off in the 4th quarter was vexing. In the game thread, a post characterized the start as coach Spo Heat like. Those Spo/Riley Heat teams were unlikely to have the 4th qtr drop of last night. A similar attitude can be gleaned from the many games, where the Knick’s need a Cap Clutch bailout to eke out a victory over a clearly inferior opponent.

The good news is that we can beat those guys. The bad news is that we still be ourselves.

New Years resolution, no more exaggerating doom and gloom game thread comments! 2026 is the most exciting year for Knicks fans since 1994, let’s finally fucking win it all this year!

Does anyone here really trust KaT on the defensive end in pnr or against a team with no players he can hide on, in the playoffs?

This is why Deuce is so important to this team as our best point of attack defender (and really, the only excellent one in our lineup.) KAT is actually a decent rim protector, he’s in the 80th percentile in rim protection this season and has posted multiple 90th percentile seasons (per Hot Hand Theory.) But he is super shitty in drop coverage because of the decision-making involving which guy to cover and when. However, he’s good at contesting shots at the rim and getting the defensive rebound to end the possession.

More minutes for Deuce should help. Maybe also a trade deadline acquisition for a POA defending guard.

In this country we say happy new year.

“Over the years I’ve been consistently confused by the Knicks not sticking a guy onto an opposing player who has it going — let the other four beat you. Time and again someone gets super-hot, and the team plays the same lackadaisical defense. To me that’s a coach’s failure. Everyone in the arena, and everyone on TV, knew that they needed to bottle up Champagnie (sorry, had to).”

i wouldve given this more than one thumbs up if i could our lack of defense on champagnie was indeed exasperating im a little surprised that no is posting here about how ferocious the spurs defense was against us we were rarely open and they made passing very difficult the loss probably feels worse because we wanted to go out of the year with a nice win but there is no shame in losing to that squad especially without josh and mitch really my only complaint would be letting champagnie go off like that

New Years resolution, no more exaggerating doom and gloom game thread comments!

I love those. Granted I’m reading them in my morning, when the game is over and I know the score, so they’re not doom and gloom anymore, just a fun plot twist. Please continue. It’s the kind of emotional highs and lows that make the game thread so much more fun than the old game recap.

farfas old game recaps were second to none!

per Hot Hand Theory.

They had a great line the other day (I’m paraphrasing): “it feels like this team under Brown is working on finding all the answers, whereas in past years under Thibs they weren’t even interested in asking the questions.”

They also cited the following stat: OG, Hart, and Bridges have played 40 mins or more 7 times this year combined. Last year they did it 94 times!

This is why Deuce is so important to this team as our best point of attack defender (and really, the only excellent one in our lineup.)

Kolek is also very good at the point of attack.

KAT is actually a decent rim protector, he’s in the 80th percentile in rim protection this season and has posted multiple 90th percentile seasons (per Hot Hand Theory.)

yeah i dissent. i don’t think he has ever been near 90th percentile in a measure that reasonably attempts tell the full story of rim protection and its counterfactuals. most (eg dfga %) are really poor proxies by themselves. i think kat is a well below average rim protector partly mitigated by being an above average switch defender (for a 5) and an above average defensive rebounder. this makes him looks somewhat worse on defense than he is because shitty rim protection from a 5 jumps off the page. but i think that’s the best thing you can say about kat: he’s not as harmful a defensive 5 as his subpar rim protection would suggest.

im a little surprised that no is posting here about how ferocious the spurs defense was against us we were rarely open and they made passing very difficult

I agree the spurs defense was good. I couldn’t watch all the game, but in the part I saw, the Spurs players were always in position and making our offense difficult. Even so, we still scored well and I thought that was a tribute to our offense and to our persistence and aggression.

As an interesting side bar, I listened to a long form interview with Pat Riley and he was discussing when he traded for Shaq in 2004.

He stepped on the scale his first day of practice at 383 pounds. He said he was down to 320 by the end of his first season.

He also mentioned the best brawl he witnessed was between Xavier Mc Daniel and Anthony Mason the first day of practice after X arrived. He said it happened during the first possession of practice and it was a real heavyweight battle that lasted a few minutes til they could break them up. He said both guys had zero issues after their throw down.

Also that 91-92 team had 7 guys play all 82 games and that slackard Mark Jackson played only 81 for the 8th man.

From this link in an article about the NBA’s most disappointing players this season.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6930954/2026/01/01/nba-season-2025-2026-disappointments/

Guerschon Yabusele

Remember when the New York Knicks got a deal because Yabusele took a slight haircut on his taxpayer midlevel exception contract to keep New York below the second apron? Welp.

He was one of the best stories of 2024-25, parlaying his stellar play for the French national team into a key role on the Sixers, but his New York experience has been less magnifique. Yabusele has been exiled to the basketball Elba that is the end of Mike Brown’s bench after 27 ineffective games with the Knickerbockers, even as deep-bench guys like Kevin McCullar and Mohamed Diawara get chances to shine during Josh Hart’s injury absence.

Yabusele has struggled to make an impact at either end, sporting an 8.7 PER and shooting a modest 34 percent from 3 — where most of his attempts come from. In fact, the biggest difference between this season and his last one in Philly is that he’s made almost no impact whatsoever inside the arc; on a per-possession basis, he has half as many 2-point baskets and free throws as he did a season ago.

Thanks, Knicks Fan, interesting article throughout, and nice to see Yabu getting some mid-season love…

Hilarious aspect of the Brunson three. The Spurs were giving 3.5 points. That were up five when the three went in, so they didn’t cover. Too funny.

As an interesting side bar, I listened to a long form interview with Pat Riley

This is very intriguing…can you please share link?

https://youtu.be/OyjqpuaXRKg

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