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SEE IT! New York Knicks’ 2026 NBA Championship ring – New York Daily News
Game Thread: Knicks vs. 76ers, October 20, 2026 – Posting & Toasting
76ers 106, Knicks 100: Scenes from banner night – Posting & Toasting
Knicks lose sight of little details in season-opening loss to 76ers: ‘We put ourselves in the hole’ – SNY
Jalen Brunson believes some positives can come from Knicks’ ugly opening night loss – SNY
Mike Brown: Would not have felt good about a win vs. 76ers given Knicks’ play – ESPN
Knicks Reveal Gold-Themed Uniforms in Video for 2026 NBA Opener vs. LeBron James, 76ers – BleacherReport
Knicks’ NBA Cup Banner Unveiled at MSG in Photo Ahead of Ceremony Celebrating 2026 Championship – BleacherReport
Knicks vs Sixers Ring Night Run.Down – The Strickland
76ERS at KNICKS | FULL GAME HIGHLIGHTS | October 20, 2026 – NBA
Knicks vs Sixers Game Preview with Adam Aaronson of The Philly Voice | KFTV – Knicks Fan TV
Betting Knicks Basketball Is BACK! | KFS Weekly Wagers | Knicks Film School – Knicks Film School
Can The Knicks Trust Wiseman? Game #shorts – Knick of Time
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80 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2026.10.21)”
Got to watch the ring/banner ceremony and most of the first half, but crashed early in the second after two-plus weeks in hospital. Probably for the best, given the result.
Damn this Mara block on Wemby…
https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/50234527
Helluva first game.
Yeah, Alan, it was a very annoying game. The Knicks seemed stuck in the mud all night. The Sixers didn’t play particularly well, other than Maxey, who might be my favorite opposing player, he was fantastic. Whoever thought the difference in the game would be Anfernee Simons?
The only guy who stood out positively for us was GTA. Drummond can’t make a bunny but otherwise was pretty good. KAT was so-so. Brunson couldn’t hit shots he makes in his sleep. OG and Mikal were invisible. Deuce and Shamet were meh.
I think Philly is gonna be a problem so long as they stay healthy. Lots of guys who can score. They aren’t very good from 3, but they make up for it in a lot of ways. And Maxey with space is unguardable.
Feeling better?
I did the opposite and only watched the end of the game. We lost but i didn’t feel there was a lot to worry about, we were playing what we’re supposed to, it was just that the shots weren’t falling.
Cyber and Z-man in complete agreement. LOL
But please take Z-man’s take more seriously, i only watched the last few minutes, like 4 or 5. And i’m an optimist by nature. 🙂
Thanks cyber. I should also give Josh Hart a shoutout. He carried us for a stretch. But he also was invisible for most of the game.
The rings are ridiculously cool, but beyond gaudy and heavy. Not sure how they wear those around. Might have to get a knockoff for that.
Re: the game… whatever.
How about Jon Bon Jovi jumping on the Knicks bandwagon with the same shamelessness he brought to his music?
Maybe this year we should have the 2-9 stretch immediately to get rid of all these plastics.
Hope you feel better, Alan. It’s probably going to be like this until the playoffs – a mix of frustration and relief, not joy.
Whoa. Whoa. Diawara never got off the bench.
Are we not going to talk about that?
Consider me really worried about his prospects.
Whoa.
Is it too late to revise my prediction of 49-33 to 0-82?
The top of the rings that opens up and looks like MSG is insanely cool.
I may have texted tank gifs this morning to a couple of sportswriter friends. Can’t give up the gimmick just yet!
Surprised they don’t have Dolan’s head in shades and a fedora pop out of them.
Two weeks is a long time to be in a hospital. I’m really glad you are out of there.
Funny you ask bc I was just reading Alan’s review and I felt the same way so I’ll just copy what the pro said (without any spoilers):
Two things can be true. Slow Horses Season Six was a lot of fun in a lot of ways, particularly in seeing so many former characters returning at the same time. But mashing up the plots of two books, on top of [REDACTED], was more than a six-episode season could comfortably accommodate.
Also I’m happy to know that even he couldn’t figure out why there were two teams. That was confusing me all season.
I found myself wondering how secure those things are. Is there a nonzero chance the top of Josh Hart’s ring falls off and someone picks up $2M worth of diamonds on the street?
I can’t say I was surprised because he fits the profile of the kind of guy you know intellectually is mediocre but reliably cooks us to a tee.
We may be world champions now, but some things never change. There will always be Randy Foye Awards to hand out.
Does Patrick Ewing’s ring have a miniature Charles Oakley being escorted out the arena by Garden Security in his pop-up?
I am not surprised at all that we lost. I think banner raising night can be emotionally draining and while we’re spending the whole pregame looking back, Philly is looking ahead.
Also, Brunson had hand surgery. So besides having the shortest off season and all of the summer championship circuit stuff, he also was recovering from surgery. I would not be surprised at all to learn that he got very little practice in before training camp.
This goes to a lesser extent for the rest of the starters. None of them were dealing with a surgery but all of them were celebrating and probably spending less time in the gym this summer. That is ok but rust is going to be a thing.
I think the focus, though, to repeat, will be there. And, honestly, we have a tough opening 10 games. I would be fine with us starting out slow with this first stretch so the team realizes they can’t just rest on their laurels.
But if the shots fall last night, we win this one easily.
If KAT wants more money, he’s gotta show all season he can stay out of foul trouble and play up to playoff KAT level.
Diawara and Wiseman got no burn, though? A little surprised by that. Andre looked good but I don’t think we can pencil him in for more than 20 a night at his age. He seems to play really well in smaller stints. So if KAT gets in foul trouble, Brown has to roll Wiseman out there and see what we got with him.
On a side note, it made me really sad when Hukporti came out to get his ring injured like that. I feel bad for the dude. He had a real opportunity in Philly to establish himself and then he gets a season ending injury like that. Major bummer.
I’m worried the trade talks and stalled contract talks are messing with Deuce.
Brown said after the game he probably played Drummond too much and therefore he was kinda gassed in the 2nd half.
I love Deuce but he really hasn’t improved at all his ball handling and shot creation. I give him a ton of credit for becoming an excellent 3pt shooter and not just spotting up he can shoot it off the dribble and under duress. But for the most part he’s still very limited offensively, feels like even Shamet is better at putting the ball on the floor and attacking the basket than Deuce.
I don’t really see how Deuce will get paid anything more than 10m per year and not sure he’ll even get that much in the open market.
This really is a brutal start to the season. We’re at Boston Friday. And then we have two teams at home (Orlando and Detroit) who play very physical and very dirty, and we have historically responded to their aggressive tactics by taking the night off.
I’m sure we won’t go 0-4 but I think we should prepare to take a slow start in stride. There’s going to be lots of talks about the contracts and the vibes and us getting lucky. It will pass. We’ll be fine.
I’m not positive that we won’t go 1-3 or even 0-4 to start the season. It’ll look super ugly, but it’ll get better. Still want to know why Mo and to a lesser extent Wiseman never left the bench.
Because neither guy will be in the rotation when we’re fully healthy?
I think Mo *should* be.
After last night, I’m hoping we get home court for the Play-In. 😉
If most star players remain relatively healthy, the NBA is going to be absolutely brutal this year. This may be the best the league has ever been. Some good teams are going to miss the playoffs and some very good teams are going to be barely above .500.
Diawara had a disappointing summer league and mediocre pre season.
There were two possibities with him.
1. Last year’s outside shooting early in his break out period wasn’t a fluke and he has significant two way upside.
2. Last year’s fade down the stretch of the season was more indicative of where he actually is now.
I was hoping for a real breakout this year and gave it enough of a chance to be really looking foward to seeing him tis year. Let’s just say my enthusiasm has waned. He’s still VERY young and has shown enough flashes of two-way talent to become a key contributor eventually, but he’s behind my hopes.
Doogie, I think Clarkson has the spot you want Mo to have, and he deserves it. It will take injuries or impressive development in practice to get Mo in the rotation, and that’s how it should be. Mo’s not good enough yet.
Given what Brown said about overplaying Drummond, some spot minutes for Wiseman may have been called for, and we might get that next time KAT does his stupid fouls thing (and please KAT, don’t let next time be Friday).
Mo is 8/37 from 3 since the regular season ended, including playoffs, preseason, and SL, that’s 21.6%.
Overall, looking at his 195 threes at any level of recorded basketball since being drafted, he’s shooting 30.8%.
He couldn’t shoot in Europe.
The evidence suggests he went on a hot streak, but otherwise can’t shoot the ball.
It’s annoying that Nurse stole Brown’s idea of putting a strong defensive wing at center, and used it against us. I was hoping we’d put OG at center for at least 5 minutes to tire out Joel, but alas…
That was a very winnable game last night, but I think everyone (even Brown) was rusty. Hopefully they’ll bring their A-game to Boston.
Doogie, if Mo or Wiseman are out there for any extended amount of time, that means things are going badly.
I was a little surprised they didn’t play Wiseman. Possibly due to Drummond kicking ass during his initial 12min stint. Possibly a lack of trust.
In the playoffs, Brown would’ve trusted Huk for a couple minutes in that spot to give the backup a breather.
One immediate improvement we can make is implementing the Mitch Rule for Drummond.
When you get an offensive rebound, kick it out immediately unless you are directly under the basket with no defenders around. No exceptions.
The guy clearly has some skills we can use, but I hope we saw him take 13 shots for the first and last time. Before the season, I would’ve taken the under on him hitting that mark in any single game. So let’s not make it a habit.
TNFH, I completely agree. Mitch seldom held the ball or turned it over. He either had the dunk or would kick it back out and keep the ball moving. He almost never created empty possessions. It is an underrated part of his game, and we saw what happens when someone like Drummond tries to do too much.
Well pul, and this is why Mitch’s limitations, given his salary, never really bothered me. I never found myself thinking “I wish Mitch had a bag, so that he could take some more shots instead of Jalen Brunson shooting so much.”
Obviously all things being equal, you prefer a player with more skill. But as we saw with Drummond, “skill” can be a Siren’s call of sorts.
We know what the starters can accomplish, so if they were off not a problem. Backup C is the most pressing issue and Andre produced. Bench play from GTA and Shamet showed me late last season performances can be replicated. Mo and Wiseman at DNP-CD means absolutely nothing unless someone has insight into practices.
I like this team and may very well take the most optimistic poster mantle from Swifty (which admittedly gives me pause for thought).
Andre “produced” but he also showed us who he is. He filled the stat sheet but was -6 in a 6 point game, largely for two reasons: he can’t protect the rim and he can’t dunk. The latter means he’s not a lob threat at all and his defender has a very long time to recover, both of which create spacing problems for Brunson, who not coincidentally had one of the worst shooting games we’ve ever seen from him.
He’s a great signing for the vet min but he’s also a regular season innings eater. I don’t think this is a guy who can play 12 playoff minutes against a team like OKC or San Antonio. Hell I wouldn’t even trust him against Indiana, they would run circles around him. Leon’s going to have keep looking for that answer.
It struck me before the game and was made clear during it that LeBron really ended up on just the right team for him at this point in his career. Super talented teammates but a very potentially chaotic mix. As elder statesman and proven winner, he can keep them on the right path with only a little effort now and again. I hate him, but have to tip my hat.
I would very much like to see us spank the Celtics. I would also be curious to see if we employ Hack-a-Mitch during the game…
Funny, Raven, because it struck me during the game (especially when I was watching him play center), that the perfect team for LeBron at this stage was us.
Dude should have embraced his inner ring chaser instead of giving a damn about what the haters think.
My blood was boiling when they trotted Lebron out for the end game interview.
I miss Mitch a lot. Drummond probably is totally serviceable but Mitch would have dunked those balls right through Embiid, instead of the three blocks.
I won’t lament him all season long, well, I probably will, and Drummond wasn’t the biggest issue, but I definitely hope Leon can find someone else.
Why were you mad that they brought LeBron out for the post-game? Wouldn’t that be pretty much what you’d expect?
Yeah, I mean if you don’t kick the ball out from the offensive rebound, you lose the scramble 3 value and the scramble 3 value is a big part of the overall value of your O-reb.
If instead of a kickout, you throw up soft slop instead, you’ve pretty much turfed the value of your O-reb.
In terms of the bigger picture, three things are going to happen:
1. They’ll have a great regular season, in which case people will say, “Great regular season, hopefully they’ll keep it up and play in the playoffs like they played last year.”
2. They’ll have a good regular season, a la last year, in which case people will say, “Now the real season starts, hopefully they’ll play in the playoffs like they played last year.”
3. They’ll have a meh regular season, in which case people will say, “Now the real season starts, hopefully they’ll play in the playoffs like they played last year.”
Trying not to lament the loss of Mitch but it’s occurred to me that if we had just gone over the second apron, we could have re-signed Mitch, let Huk go, and brought in Drummond on the vet minimum. Drummond is a good back up center and would have been a huge upgrade over Hukporti. Instead, we have a downgrade from Mitch and Wiseman, who is probably neutral with Hukporti at this time.
We could have continued to load manage Mitch with Andre getting plenty of regular season minutes on nights KAT gets in foul trouble, on back to backs when Mitch sits, etc. I truly believe Andre’s more diverse skill set is a useful addition to our team it’s just too bad we also lost Mitch’s eliteness.
Sigh.
I’m not going to lose any sleep over Drummond’s limitations because I’m pretty sure he won’t be our guy in the spring. I see him as this year’s Clarkson, i.e. we’ll use him a lot in the first half of the season but eventually we’ll go out and get an Alvarado. He won’t be a Landry Shamet, but he won’t be a Yabu, either.
Dude was fired up last night, though, and the crowd was very eager to get behind him.
Even when Drummond is on the floor with second unit guys, we generally have a bunch of shooters on the floor, and Drummond is also not an inept passer. So yeah, kick it out to one of the dudes on the perimeter. Even with the bench unit you’ll have some combination of Deuce/Shamet/Alvarado/Mikal/OG out there.
It’s kind of amazing to me how Drummond is strong enough and has enough spatial awareness to pull down a truly impressive amount of rebounds– it seems like he gobbles up every one that’s even remotely close to him– but that he somehow can’t manage to throw down a dunk if anybody is standing even remotely close to the rim. He’s about as good as you can get at establishing position and hauling down rebounds, and has the body control and timing to jump at the right time and wrap the thing up with his hands. If he could just throw down a dunk like a normal guy of his size and strength you’d have something cooking, but alas.
He also threw up a one-foot airball, which was impressive in its own way.
Not for nothing, Mitch kind of stunk out the joint in his first game with the Celtics. He lasted about five minutes before landing awkwardly and getting hurt, and was ineffective in 18 minutes. He’ll have better games, but that first game was not a great omen for his durability. There’s a pretty big difference between “healthy and moving well Mitch” and “banged up mummy Mitch” and last night the Celtics got the latter. He had 3 rebounds in 18 minutes and was -8.
Mitch is too big now. Needs to lose 10-15.
Somebody else’s problem.
Shams:
This is Drummond’s 15th season, he’s obviously not as explosive as he was in his earlier years. His FG% has declined last couple of seasons after being above 60% a few years ago which was an improvement from earlier in the decade when his FG% was already in decline.
NBA.com characterizes 4 of Drummond’s attempts as dunks. He missed all 4. Only 2 were blocked. He shouldn’t be attempting to dunk under any circumstance.
The Warriors are going to suck this year, which is good for our Horford chances. Only problem is he’s probably the best backup C on the market by a mile and there are so many teams who need one. He might not got bought out bc someone is willing to give up something for him.
Despite all the alleged flexibility we gained by staying under the second apron, I don’t think it’s mathematically possible for us to trade for a player making $6.8M without breaking up the core.
Still mad at Dolan for not re-signing Mitch.
Rough math Deuce is making 3.9 million. Dadiet is making 2.9 million which equals 6.8 million!
Throw in a second rounder or two. They get a goodish player in Deuce they can resign if they want. They take a flyer on Dadiet the rest of this season and either pick up his option or not for next season. They get a second round pick (or two) from us.
Trading Deuce for Horford would sting a little because you’re basically just getting a rental on Horford and it ages the team even more. But if the goal is to repeat this year, future be damned, it’s not a bad move.
I’d still rather find a young, defensive minded center that we could potentially keep beyond this year. But it would not be a bad move if we’re probably losing deuce anyways.
No way I’m trading Deuce for Horford.
Clarkson and Dadiet = $6.86M
Horford = $6.82M
But even that doesn’t work because then we’d have to sign someone to fill out the roster and that would put us over the second apron.
It has to be a three-way trade, too, because Golden State is over the first apron and that $0.04M (i.e. $40k) makes the trade no good.
If anyone can figure it out, it’s Brock Aller, but it seems impossible without trading Landry Shamet, which is not something I want to do, either.
Even if you know we won’t resign him?
But you’re right. If we’re including Deuce but also Dadiet, there is probably no reason to include second round picks bc Deuce is the most valuable player going out.
He had 91 million reasons not to.
https://www.sports-reference.com/stathead/basketball/versus-finder.cgi?player_id2=robinmi01&year_min=2027&player_id1=drumman01&seasons_type=forall&request=1&utm_campaign=2023_01_wdgt_player_comparison&utm_id=drumman01&utm_source=bbr&utm_medium=sr_xsite
Horford is still good and I’d love to have him, but there’s a sort of robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul thing here, because he doesn’t rebound so hot anymore, nor does he defend well in space. He’s still a very smart, high IQ positional defender and can hit a three and set a screen, but…
Horford
ORB% 5.0
TRB% 12.6
Drummond
ORB% 17.5
TRB% 23.6
He literally gets half as many rebounds as Drummond and 1/3 as many offensive rebounds, so he’s giving a lot of that value right back.
He’s still a better player than Drummond, but not so much of an upgrade that I’d want to be sending Deuce out for him.
It looks like KP is done. The prognosis for POTS is generally not that bad. That was the official diagnosis. But we are talking about a 7′ 2″ professional athlete. I doubt they have any data on that combo.
Also, it may not even be POTS. This was part of his latest post on X.
“It has definitely been frustrating dealing with some health stuff that you can’t exactly pinpoint”
I’d like to get a bet down they are barking up the wrong tree.
He hasn’t given up.
“Honestly, I’m getting better and better. I just have to stay patient, and I believe I’ll be feeling great again soon.”
We’d be absolute idiots to not resign Deuce. Even if it’s only to trade him next year.
But I did see Dolan wearing that ugly peach jacket again, so you never know.
I’m not concerned overall, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hate how intentionally visible Dolan has been lately.
Especially because he’s always wearing that jacket, which screams “I’m so deep down a bad decision hole that I can’t even hear the people trying to talk sense into me.”
How can we expect Leon to get him to understand the apron when his wife can’t even tell him how stupid he looks wearing that thing?
I think you’re looking at Clarkson’s actual salary instead of his cap salary as a vet minimum.
Unfortunately it doesn’t work.
With how small our 2nd unit is… we might be stuck with Drummond at C if we don’t want to get killed on the boards.
I was. And it’s last time I use HAL for anything.
I’m joining Alan’s team. AI sucks.
Uncle Al’s probably the second best player ever to come out of Lansing, MI, behind Magic, so I have a natural soft spot for him and even in pure basketball terms think it would be a great get.
I think we might need a platoon. Someone like Drummond may be what the second unit needs but he killed Brunson’s spacing last night. What didn’t show up in the box score was the dreadful 86.7 ORtg Jalen had in the 14 minutes he shared the court with Andre. Whether it’s Horford or Matkovic or someone we haven’t thought of yet, we need at least one other big who aligns with Jalen.
If striking out four times in a game is the “golden sombrero,” what is being 7 feet tall and going 0-4 on dunks? I’m not sure I even thought that was possible before last night.
Drummond came in, brought some nice energy, and then instantly thought he was peak Dwight Howard, and he shat up the joint after that, and Brown somehow stuck with him through all of it. Very weird.
Thank you!
All I can say is I enjoyed the ring snd banner ceremony more than I expected to. Of course, I enjoyed the actual game less than I hoped to.
Listening to the KFS postgame, two things stood out to me:
1) Five of the most anticipated home games in the Leon era have been losses:
Game 1 vs. ATL in the We Here season
Game 3 vs. Celts in 2025
Game 1 vs. Indiana in 2025
Game 3 vs. the Spurs in the 2025 Finals
Champion’s Night vs. Sixers
2) They compared Andre Drummond’s game to a late-career Russell Westbrook game, in that he giveth and he taketh.
???
Did Brunson shoot 8 for 10 or not suck last night when the ultimate floor spacer (KAT) was on the floor?
Did Drummond ruin OG’s 3 point shooting stroke? Make Bridges , Shammet and Deuce suck, too?
Is he responsible for the Ozone hole? I get it everyone prefers Mitch, as do I, but Dolan/management didn’t see a 91 million dollar difference. Drummond had no business playing 24 minutes in the first game of the season. Even Brown admitted that.
The Knicks were a 53 win team last year and have the same team less Mitch. They got on an incredible heater when they unleashed point CAT on the league. Everyone had 3 months to figure it out and the Sixers snuffed it out last night. They spent 3 months on a well deserved victory lap and their best player is coming off a short off season and wrist surgery. Probably no one put in the adequate reps to come flying out of the gate. See how things look in 10 days, but blaming Drummond for the entire team sucking last night when he was their 3rd or 4th best player is inconsistent with what happened.
Count me in. 😉
And the “thing” has come to take my job… now my boss thinks he’s a software developer! LOL
Karlo Matkovic is halfway to his first DNP-CD of the season
Bob you’re trying too hard and you’re making shit up (for the second night in a row). No one’s blaming Drummond for the entire team sucking last night. And Mitch wouldn’t have cost anywhere near $91M.
Its gonna be a long season in Brooklyn.
Its so sad…they don’t have a celebrity row…its like a celebrity seat…tonight it was Ethan Hawke…I can’t remember if he used to go to knick games
Randle and Porter Jr lead the league in empty calories…
I love ’em !! 🧡💙
https://c.tenor.com/G1Ecee0ueoIAAAAC/tenor.gif
T’wolves demolish the Heat 131-106 in Miami. Giannis puts up 36, but he might as well still be in Milwaukee. Heat can’t shoot.
OTOH, Edwards and LaMelo a combined 14-30 from three. The combo could have Minny in the West mix.
And the ozone hole is about a third healed.
The $91 million figure could be right. The Knicks were in the tax already and adding Mitch and going over the apron would have increased our luxury tax percentage and that would apply to all the salary over the tax level, not just Mitch’s salary.
Lillard seemed happy to be home.
Brian, you may want to do some software updates or have your website hoster do so. A new vulnerability in the PHP language that makes websites vulnerable to hackers has been noticed. WordPress runs on PHP. There are many articles on it you can search for. I suspect you don’t run the code yourself, but you probably hire someone to host Knickerblogger and they need to run the security patches.
https://tech.yahoo.com/cybersecurity/articles/know-critical-php-vulnerability-threatening-052457041.html?guccounter=1
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