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2025-26 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Thunder

I rested for last night’s game ahead of this one.

The Knicks host the suddenly kind of healthy Oklahoma City Thunder at the Garden in a possible NBA Finals advance pairing.

It’ll be fun to kick their ass!

Let’s go, Knicks!

58 is still possible, which is great!

165 replies on “2025-26 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Thunder”

That’s how to win this damn game. Get Shai into foul trouble early.

I actually yelled out loud when Hart missed that layup. First I’ve seen him miss in I can’t even remember.

Better way to win this damn game would be to stop missing wide ass fucking open 3s.

I hope the crowd tears the officials to pieces on the court.

Hulk doesn’t seem like he’s improving at all and seems very uncoordinated

Huk plays hard, but Mitch would have come in handy on a few plays already.

worth suffering the rookie mistakes by Mo D to give him the experience for the playoffs.

Knicks definitely came to play tonight, its a shame they missed so many open 3s early on that put them in a hole but they’ve fought back.

It was expected that their ferocious defense would disrupt our offense. But I like the fighting spirit of the Knicks. As long as we keep our defensive effort and keep their scoring low, we will be in this one.

The non-call reeked of “well shit, we can’t call 3 on SGA”

It’s totally that. Particularly annoying given the cheap ass stuff that SGA also gets.

We’re actually doing extraordinarily good considering we can’t get a call and OKC gets ones that don’t even exist.

Look, I’m turning into BBA…

What if someone told you before the season that Diawara would get switched onto SGA and you’d feel ok about the whole thing?

OMFG

If KAT had been an OKC player on that last drive of his, the refs would have called TWO fouls on the Knicks.

Alvarado has not been shooting well other than that one game when he went off from 3.

Alvarado has not been shooting well other than that one game when he went off from 3.

That’s because he’s a lifetime 34.9% 3 point shooter.

It’s kinda hard to complain about anything from my POV…these guys might just be the best defensive team I’ve ever seen

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Yeah TNFH, the transition defense is something else for sure. So many easy buckets just evaporate.

I think the refs have swung the game five points
the Thunder way too.

what’s wrong with the knicks:

jalen, josh, and OG are 6 for 25, KAT is 4 for 4…

why won’t they feed KAT, especially with williams guarding him…

Yes, we don’t get the calls, but the refs are not our issue. OKC defense is. They shut JB down. We scored only 38 points because we feel their pressure and we are neither sharp nor confident. OKC is more composed that we are. Glad we are still in it, but we have to get our offense going.

OKC’s defense was excellent, but we missed some easy shots, made some terrible decisions and executed poorly. Defensively we played hard but things broke down a few times and we gave up easy open 3s. Frustrating game. Refs no help. It should easily be tied right now.

When you lose your confidence, composure, and rhythm, then yes, you miss makeable shots.

The Knicks are playing a back to back in another country 24 hours later while OKC sat their players. This is a good example of why players don’t play back to backs . In a league with tanking issues Silver and his team should schedule games better .

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OG is 2-9, Hart is 2-8, Jalen is 1-8.

Meanwhile Towns is shooting 100% and has gotten 4 shots.

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Yes, we gave them a few cheap points, no defense is perfect, plus SGA gets the whistle. Fine. But at the end of this half they scored only 50 points. We have them where we want them! We just need to continue playing intense defense and find a way to get our offense going.

We might well not break 80 tonight. Hard to win that way…

Down six…

As soon as Alvarado came on I turned the sound back on…

It is weird that the NBA scheduled what everyone knew could well be a Finals preview before the season as a back-to-back for both teams

TNFH OKC sat their players yesterday against the crappy Bulls so it really isn’t a back to back for their top guys..

We became the aggressor, got the calls, imposed our will, and it’s 72-72. If not for the first few sluggish minutes this quarter, we could be in front right now. Let’s hope we continue like this.

Defense has been excellent. Thunder got most of their points from the line.

I’ll cop to recency bias, but best quarter all season considering the opponent.

I complain when they don’t move the ball, but I’ve seen a few possessions where a player had a decent shot, made a pass that he didn’t need to make and we wound up with something worse.

Not gonna lie I yelled out fuck yeah after that Bridges 3pter.

You, me, and all Knicks fans 😉 😀

They did what they were supposed to do this quarter. They have twelve more minutes. It’s up to them to close it out. Lay it all out there!

1st half (without Cyber) 40 pts, 3rd quarter (with Cyber) 40 pts… don’t need to look for more explanations! 😀

Seems like brunson must be pissed at the cheap shots he’s taken and doesn’t want to come off the floor

Good effort but they better start making some 3s. Can’t beat this team shooting 29% from 3. Defense playing well

“Anunoby has point-blank range”

Worst shot in the NBA…

They should have sat Brunson for a bit to let the Alvarado-KAT lineup get some time.

The game long strategy of allowing OKC to shoot a shitload of wide open 3s is beginning to bite Knicks in the ass.

Of course, after all the calls, the Knicks are going to lose this challenge.

edit: I guess the defender moved his left foot, is that being set?

He’s moving his arms, i don’t think they are overturning this. But i’ve been wrong before. LOL

I am satisfied we are good enough to challenge this team in the Finals as long as we have different refs

That was a ridiculous call, OG grazed him and he threw himself on the floor.

OKC exploits referees on both sides of the floor. Ultra-aggressive defense, exaggerates contact on the other side.

Plus, super dirty team. Dort in particular.

I hate that I-Hart is there.

I give up, i’m from the 90s, when this wouldn’t be a foul not in a million years

Good effort. Terrible 2nd and 4th did us in. Defense still playing well. We just couldn’t get baskets

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I don’t know how this team became darling of nba refs but it sure helps them win games

Lucky OKC. The overturned challenges and the missed 3s from us all night gave them the win.

I love how we competed and a couple more shots go in and we pull this one out. Tough loss but encouraging.

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This was a very physical hard fought game against the best team in the NBA and one of the best defenses ever. They are more used to this type of games thus us. They looked cooler and more composed than us for most of the game. They executed better out of the double teams and got cleaner shots. And they shot better than us. We slowed down SGA, but they shut down Brunson. We got some 50-50 calls, they got more. But we competed. We were right there with them. A detail here and there might have changed things. It’s not losing with our hands down like we did against Detroit. No complaints tonight.

That non call on SGA was one of worst I’ve seen in a Knick game this year

Meanwhile, the stretch from hell continues. Nuggets, Lakers, and Clippers coming up. Let’s see what metal we are made of.

They can beat all 3 of those teams but I hope we don’t have a big let down after this loss

They played hard but not well. You can argue OKC’s defense gave them more opportunities to do dumb things, but they should have won this game.

The Nuggets haven’t been playing well recently and aren’t the same without Gordon.

The Lakers don’t play defense.

The Clippers are not that good.

“The Nuggets haven’t been playing well recently and aren’t the same without Gordon.”

Didn’t someone say on here earlier today that Gordon is due to come back against us on Friday night?

Found it:
Alan says:
March 4, 2026 at 13:40
Amick:

Source: The Nuggets’ Aaron Gordon is targeting a Friday return (against NY) from the hamstring injury that sidelined him Jan. 23.

It remains to be seen if he gets cleared by then, but Denver desperately needs him – again.

Didn’t someone say on here earlier today that Gordon is due to come back against us on Friday night?

Ugh. Teams seem to target us. If he does come back I doubt he’ll be 100%. He’ll probably also be on a minutes restriction.

It’s not about them. It’s about us. It’s a west coast trip, it is always difficult. We need to keep playing hard if we want to win. We can beat all three of them. And if we lose any game, we must go down fighting, not with our hands down.

It’s hard to say for sure they would have won tonight if they had Mitch because they won Huk’s minutes (+7), but I think they might have won yesterday and today if they went for it. Huk didn’t score and had 3 TO’s in 9 minutes. Mitch would have given us more minutes, fewer TOs, better defense and at least a lob threat on offense. At least we hung with this version of OKC.

There is absolutely nothing to hang our heads about. We played really freaking hard 5 against 8 and it came down to a last shot.

I was at the game and the fans were totally into the effort tonight. No one was pissed after the game.

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I don’t like blaming the refs, especially when we can just be happy with how hard they played. They hung with them the whole game. It was as “good” of a loss as you’ll ever see.

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Ah…….is that what “5 against 8” means, your five players against the other teams’ five players plus three refs? It’s an interesting, somewhat clever turn of phrase, even though I’ve never heard it before (and didn’t see anything about it when I looked it up).

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