News & Blogs
Knicks Bulletin: ‘I’m still trying to figure out this team a little bit’ – Posting & Toasting
Knicks pausing all contract extension negotiations until ‘later in the season’ – SNY
Catching Strays | Madison Square Garden calls using Knicks rings as phishing test a ‘mistake’ – New York Daily News
James Dolan needs to get out of his own way and stop raining on Knicks’ parade – The New York Times
Bruce Brown making a strong case to crack Knicks’ roster – SNY
Game Preview: Knicks vs. Magic, October 25, 2026 – Posting & Toasting
KOT 10 year Reunion Show | Knicks Champions: Our 10-Year Journey From 13 Wins to Glory – Knick of Time
The Run.down Knicks vs Magic Postgame Show – The Strickland
Knicks vs Magic – Recap & Reaction | POSTGAME SHOW | Knicks Film School – Knicks Film School
MAGIC at KNICKS | FULL GAME HIGHLIGHTS | October 25, 2026 – NBA
Knicks Go 0-3 After 4th Quarter Of The Doom! – Knicks Fan TV
YT News
85 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2026.10.26)”
Injuries league-wide seem to be really piling up.
Injuries are going to continue to go up with tanking down . Far less games you can rest players now and expect a win.
Scottie Barnes with a Mikal stat line last night
* I had a healthy OKC as the clear cut favorites,
but the Williams injury brings them closer to the field.
Jalen Brunson has a 39/27/70 slash line.
Nuff said.
https://x.com/alanhahn/status/2114547462627344684
This isn’t going to work either . 3 of the 5 starters have been good enough
The frontcourt depth is another story
They’re right in the thick of the field now. That injury changes not only the entire season but the long term outlook of the Thunder.
Meanwhile the Knicks see all this and are smartly giving minimal effort in the early going. Let all these teams run out the gate early and lose key players, we’ll ramp up later when the odds are in our favor.
It’s 4-D chess and I’m here for it.
Towns btw has been great 21 points 12 rebs on 71 TS. Would like to see more offense run through him .
From the underground knicks link:
Great response to one of the most self-aggrandizing statements I’ve ever seen.
My only real concern is that Andre Drummond looks a lot worse than I thought. It’s not only the net rating, which is terrible at -20. He does stuff on the court that looks like he does not belong on a team like this.
He might need the Clarkson treatment from Mike Brown straight away.
You know who’s having a good season so far? Obi Toppin. 16 pts, almost 5 rebounds, shooting 44% from three. Small sample size, and he’s their 6th man, but I’m happy that he seems to have found his role.
The Jaylen Williams injury was horrific, but it’s not going to have much impact on the Thunder’s chance’s for the title. If you liked their chances/odds before the injury and the odds move up noticeably because of this, bet more.
I can’t even be mad or frustrated at the team right now. Last night I tried making my usual game thread comments but my heart wasn’t totally into it.
Like how can we really get mad at Brunson or even Bridges after what they did last season.
I do wonder how long this grace period will last for Knicks fans. I don’t think Nuggets or Bucks fans are too cool with their teams’ current situations after their once in a lifetime championships.
There is a level of grace that will literally never go away. What they did is permanent. The first thing I will tell my grandkids about Mikal Bridges is that he’s a champion.
That said, I will be extremely disappointed if we are not at least in the running to be a conference finalist by the playoffs.
There’s hardly anything to say about the backup center situation that isn’t obvious. No, it’s not the primary reason we’re 0-for-the-season. Yes, our margin for error is smaller since we willingly went from the best backup center in the NBA to a pupu platter of guys other teams didn’t want.
I’m still not worried, at least for the season, although it might be a painful few games to go. Josh is playing to the back of his card, KAT is doing fine, and OG is doing okay, although I think he’ll be steadier when he’s not trying to carry the team.
Mikal sucks hot cakes, but he does this disappearing thing fairly regularly so I presume he’ll come back to life at some point. Brunson is worrisome only in that it’s hard to win when he’s operating on two cylinders. But I have zero expectations that he won’t round into form after a bit more playing time.
Drummond’s a worry. I take the loss for ‘He’s almost as good as Mitch and can do some other things Mitch can’t.’ About the only things he can do in that latter camp is dribble a few times, and not dunk.
Otherwise our bench is pretty strong. Loved Kolek’s play last night, although he needs to actually make baskets now and again. But his pesky hands were great on D, and nine assists were lovely to watch.
Missed the 4th quarter collapse so can’t comment on what went wrong.
Grace variables, back of the envelope outline start:
1. How well they do this year.
2. If 1 doesn’t go well, how much of their future was sacrificed/front-loaded for the chip.
3. Together with 2, how snarly people want to get about Dolan and his second apron edict.
4. Together with 2 and 3, how much of the future sacrifice was the second apron edict and how much of it was other things.
I’m giving a lot of grace and don’t make much of the 0-3 start. I don’t see any reason, barring injury, this team doesn’t go into next spring as a *very* tough out.
Drummond isn’t any good, though.
Kolek’s passing is clearly NBA level, and he seems to have gotten materially less abusable on defense. It’s fun watching him sling the ball around.
I’m not sure a guy who is such a non-threat to score can ever be part of the rotation of a good team in 2026 though. Ultimately as a point guard you do need more of a “bag” than just being able to hit open threes, because, well, you can’t pass to yourself to set those up.
Honestly I would rather let these guys continue easing into the season. I don’t want anyone treating Detroit in game 4 like a must win. We might go 0-4. We might start 5-10. Whatever. They’ll turn it around.
Brunson is the engine of this team. He had hand surgery. Between that and the championship celebration and media circuit this summer, I’m imagining he did not practice all that much.
I’m sure the rest of the starters also took it easy this summer. They will get better. The tough opening 10 games does not help but it might be good for us to face this adversity right away. Let’s them know they can’t rest on their laurels and also seeing Drummond up close and personal let’s Leon know that he has work to do. Drummond would have been a really nice upgrade over HUK but is a clear downgrade from Mitch. Wouldn’t matter much if Brunson and and Mikal were playing well but they’re not, so the margins matter more.
Whatever. We’ll be fine. Or maybe we won’t and Leon makes a huge trade at the deadline and blows the team up.
Detroit last night without Duren and Ausar won pretty comfortably at Philly who were missing Embiid. Still don’t think Detroit will do much in the playoffs but looks like they’ll still easily win 50+ games again.
The FO gets complete, undying grace for how much of the future was sacrificed to win the title, regardless of how this or any season goes.
There will be no grace for him and that stupid edict. But that’s separate from everything else.
I don’t know, man. I think Huk was better than this. Andre looks like Yabusele. But we survived three months with him, too.
Huk was a good defender I guess. But he couldn’t score a bucket to save his life.
From what I’ve seen, defense hasn’t been the problem so far, though.
It’s the putrid play of Brunson and Mikal that is driving all of this really.
Knicks have a Top 10 defense so far! Unfortunately they’re dead last in offensive rating.
I don’t want to take anyone else down who is still on cloud 9, but this team has played like at best an average team. I almost feel like it’s the ‘Melo Knicks, where we’re just waiting for Carmelo to light it up, and suffer through the nights where he can’t. And we have like 3 people that could be a ‘Melo (Brunson, Kat, OG) on any given night. These were 3 winnable games, and I’m fine if it the line is “don’t worry, they’ll be ready in April/May/June.” However I’m not down with “hey they won last year, who cares what happens now.”
I really want to see a second chip – or at least a few Finals appearances out of this group. They clearly have the talent/chemistry to do so, but it feels like they’re just going through the motions. Maybe last year they had the Hulk Hogan/Jerry the Mouse “needs to be hit a few times before they get mad and wreck everyone”, and that’s what’s missing this year? I dunno, I feel like I’m watching a team going through the motions here.
You can go down the line:
* Bridges – what’s going on here? You’re like option #4 (3 at best!) and that’s too much pressure?
* KAT – great numbers when he’s on the floor, but man he kills the flow with his dumb fouls. Can you learn how to set a screen without fouling the defender?
* Drummond – nice numbers, but fails the eye test – can you not miss so many easy shots?
* Brunson – what’s going on here pt. 2 ? Is this rust or injury? Should I be worried? My fear is that it’s the latter and he’s going to sit out a few games and the team will have to run with Alvarado/Kolek.
* Second team – boy the offense looks bad with you folks out there, which is the fault of the …
* Coach Brown – got any ideas?
grumble. grumble.
I expect us to be 0-4 come end of day Tuesday, but 1-4 end of day Wednesday. If we can’t beat the Bull with Jalen’s hands tied behind his back, we’re really in trouble…
“He (Drummond) might need the Clarkson treatment from Mike Brown straight away.”
Difference is, we could do that with Clarkson because we had multiple other players at his position. Can’t do that with Drummond because all we have behind him is Wiseman. This is a pretty big issue given KAT’s foul issues. (KAT is playing great overall. Can you imagine how good he would be if he *wouldn’t* foul stupidly and incessantly?!?)
We need to give Mo some minutes. He’s better than Wiseman.
“* Brunson – what’s going on here pt. 2 ? Is this rust or injury? Should I be worried? My fear is that it’s the latter and he’s going to sit out a few games and the team will have to run with Alvarado/Kolek.”
Alvie’s out right now, too. That’s why Kolek got all those minutes. I like Kolek, but if Brunson and Alvie are both out and Deuce has to take the other PG minutes with Kolek, we’re in the shit even more than we already are.
I watched the game on mute while the rest of the family watched on the main tv. I was surprised that Kolek was out there, and now I know why.
Kolek just needs to knock down shots. Literally he can’t hit wide open shots, and that’s a huge problem. If he were a Rajon Rondo type defender we could live with it, but he’s clearly not.
Damning with faint praise.
Damning with faint praise maybe, maybe not. He might be *significantly* better than Wiseman, but we’ll never know if he never leaves the bench.
Fun piece in NY Mag from Yaron Weitzman profiling the Rose/Wes partnership. I definitely learned some stuff from it. One funny anecdote:
It was for me too, Wes.
Tony Bradley, we hardly knew ye.
It’s interesting, because Brown was exactly what this team needed to get over the top: a guy willing to listen to his players, experiment, and help them feel empowered.
But now this team needs a disciplinarian. Someone who will keep their focus laser-sharp after the champagne. Can Brown also be that guy?
Knicks have until February to see exercise optionality. Brown has an even longer leash to experiment and see what he has in Wiseman and Kolek. I’m sure Mo will get his run at some point. Drumm being benched for lack of hustle is concerning, let’s see how he reacts. Only vet Im concerned about is KAT as he continues to commit dumb fouls and still drives with his forearm leading. He no longer has the luxury of Mitch as a back up so he has to be smarter. Cap will regress to his mean. Not worried about him, even if other teams scheme to limit this effectiveness,
So Thibs, lol.
I appreciate that he didn’t try, though!
Drummond is averaging almost 17 FGA/36.
I wish he’d commit to this team the way he committed to his Halloween costume!
I say let them.
It’s a long season. We don’t need to Thibs it.
KAT is the least of our problems, I get the dumb foul issue, but he’s easily been our best player for the first 3 games.
Our problem is the cliff-like drop off when his substitute comes in the game.
Seems like Drummond actually IS already getting the Jordan Clarkson treatment.
It was effective with Clarkson, and Drummond is at the same phase of his career. “If you want to get minutes in this league you have to commit and defend and play within the team concept, or that’s gonna be a wrap for your career” is sound motivation.
My memory might be biased, but I feel like it takes him two tries to make every bucket. Is there a way to scan play-by-play of him doing FGA, OREB, FGM?
Which would be helped if he didn’t commit dumb fouls to begin with.
kings, warriors, pels, nets, bucks, heat…
not a group of teams we want to be associated with…
hopefully we lessen jalen and mikal’s game minutes, more time for their backups…
was interesting how MB referenced practice when explaining wiseman’s court time…does kind of sound like he’s trying to get andre to adjust his game…
yesterday’s post game locker room interviews included jalen basically stating that he understands the team is lacking right now mostly because of him…the offense…
he feels like he needs to “organize” things better…
I don’t know – main issue right now seems to be our offensive turnovers, including KAT’s stupid screen fouls…
what’s frustrating is he isn’t really doing anything that egregious – he’s just so demonstrative while doing it…ugh…
constant turnovers are really bad, except for mikal, who’s not doing much of anything – our starters are averaging 2 to 4 turnovers a game…KAT and jalen leading the way…
has luka begun or stopped dyeing his hair recently?
I can’t tell…
You’re right, Doogie. And I think the way this is developing is very bad for Wiseman. He’s been out of the league a very long time and probably needs to break in slowly. Move him up to backup center now and my guess is he’ll be injured pretty quickly.
We might just have to say fuck it and go small.
I like Mike Brown’s approach to this. He sounded the alarm in the preseason. He’s been talking about it constantly. But he’s not overreacting. He’s letting them figure it out.
The last thing these guys need is someone hitting them with the whip right now. They can pace themselves.
“hopefully we lessen jalen and mikal’s game minutes, more time for their backups…”
More time for the backups is pretty much throwing in the towel and accepting that we suck now. The starters have mostly been bad, but that’s still better than the horrific crap that bench is putting on the floor (minus Deuce’s Game 2 and Kolek’s last night, which was uneven but passable—pardon the pun).
EDIT: Right now it wouldn’t take much arm-twisting to say that we should reduce Mikal’s minutes for more Deuce. We all know that Mikal is going to start regardless, though. That’s OK.
The milkberead at ACQ is fucking awesome.
What is milkberead?
Just kidding. Hi, Clarence!
Saw an article that was basically stating that tanking will still exist; it will just “look different.” It will come in the form of reduced minutes for stars rather than stars missing games entirely. It’s kind of obvious that teams who wanted to tank should have probably started doing that years ago, rather than the load management era that got us where we are now.
Knicks starters so far 80 off rating – very bad
104 def rating – very good
If Brunson and Bridges can make more shots they should be fine. Deuce should play more with the starters as well.
For tomorrow, Duncan Robinson averaging almost 20 pts per game, and is shooting over 53% from three.
Let’s leave him open!
We all know that the starters are better than they have been playing. I’m thinking that these games probably don’t mean much of anything much at all.
I mean, they don’t but they do, you know? It’s ok if we start out slow but if we’re like 5 and 15 after 20 games, it’s not exactly easy to just reel off a bunch of wins later in the season to make up for it.
Treading water at 500 or a little below is one thing but we don’t want to be like 0-6 or 0-8 or whatever.
Damn, Cason Wallace is also out for months or more now. Sucks for that fanbase.
This one is for you, Geo. I know you like Hal as much as i do. 😀
Cyber: “Most games a team had to play until they got the first win in the NBA, after being Champions the season before?”
Hal: “The most games a team had to play to get their first win after being NBA Champions the previous season was by the 1969-70 Boston Celtics.
They started the season with 15 consecutive losses before securing their first win on November 1, 1969, against the Buffalo Braves. This remains the longest losing streak to start a season by a defending NBA champion.”
I immediately thought this was untrue so a quick search gave me 4-11 as the record of the 1969-70 Celtics at game 15.
Cyber: “The 1969-70 Celtics had a record of 4-11 at game 15.”
Hal: “You’re absolutely right! The 1969-70 Boston Celtics had a 4-11 record after 15 games, meaning they didn’t just lose their first 15 games—they lost their first 11 before finally securing their first win.
Thanks for catching that! The Celtics’ slow start remains one of the most unusual in NBA history for a defending champion.”
Went to search the accuracy of this…
Cyber: “It’s 4 games, they won at the 5th game of the season.”
Hal: “You’re correct! The 1969-70 Boston Celtics actually won their first game of the season (Game 5 overall) on October 18, 1969, defeating the Seattle SuperSonics.
Thanks for the correction—I appreciate the precision! The Celtics’ slow start was still notable, but not as extreme as initially stated.”
Hilarious! 😀 And to think that there are people that trust blindly on these “things”…
I checked out the schedule and I think the worst it can get is 5-10 before we start ripping off a lot of wins. We have a nice long & easy home stand beginning Nov 21.
Buckle up, though. It’s rough sailing before we get there. Road games at Cleveland, Philadelphia, Indiana, Toronto, Toronto again, Minnesota. The schedule gods were not kind.
Caruso can replace Wallace and they have McCain and Ajay Mitchell . Williams is the bigger loss long term. That team is really small on the wings now.
Here’s the report from Shams:
What of they’re not, though? What if the past 6 months was a collective hallucination triggered by over-medication for our Pags Derangement Syndrome? It’s happened before. Like all of season 9 of Dallas.
No great teams in the NBA this year anymore. Pretty interesting.
The Knicks are a great team. They’re just a little… drunk.
mission accomplished i guess owen…parity at its most mediocre…
great time to become an nba expansion club…easily worth the scant fourteen and a half billion dollars, or so, for the cost of starting fresh and making even more cash as the years go on…lots more cash…
wonder what the vegas name will be…silver state desperados or something…
any of this season’s 4 conference finalists should have a fair shot at winning it all…maybe even a couple of more that get eliminated in the second round…
can’t wait to see the bulls on wednesday, although if that game goes the wrong way too…
That is a massive blow to OKC. If any team can withstand it, it’s them, but considering that since last season they lost Dort, Joe, Wiggins, JDub, and Cason, the remaining and new guys are all gonna have to step up. The good news for them is that unlike last year, they have a whole season to figure it out without wishing on Jalen Wlliams to return to full health in the playoffs.
So what does their rotation look like now?
Starters: SGA, Chet, Ajay, iHart, Ajay
Reserves: Mara, Caruso, McCain, JWill, Kenrich, Stirtz
I wonder if they use some picks and young players to swing a trade…
The Spurs might be a great team. I’d have more faith if vintage Pop was coaching, but they are probably going to be very tough once they get in a groove.
chandler simpson = 1, left field wall in tampa = 0
what a play…
no fun watching 2 bad teams that I both want to lose on mnf…
although, game 3 in a close wnba finals going on…
Charlotte without LaMelo looks like a solid team in the East. No Coby White or Kon yet either .
Addition by subtraction?
Damn I didn’t realize they lost Wallace, too. They’re screwed.
I don’t think so. They had the best record in the East from Jan 1st to the end of the regular season . Brandon Miller is blowing up now though as the guy.
World series looking like a sweep. Brewers offense unstoppable
Maybe for the Philadelphia-born son of Jack Bridges and Tyneeha Rivers?
Man the Heat really suck
(That being said I hope we don’t join them in the Winless Club tomorrow night)
And Cooper Flagg is freaking awesome
“Maybe for the Philadelphia-born son of Jack Bridges and Tyneeha Rivers?”
Presti would have to be drugged to consider that.
Prediction – Pels trade Trey Murphy III to OKC.
Grizzlies are an interesting team.
I guess Cooper Flagg’s shoulder is okay…
I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy seeing Freddy Peralta getting lit up…
It should be noted that all of the Brewer’s runs were scored on singles and doubles.
Another night more injuries https://basketnews.com/news-258206-lauri-markkanen-jaren-jackson-jr-exits-with-brutal-injuries-for-jazz-vs-grizzlies.html
Maybe they need to eliminate jumping…
Or being overly big for a human.
Nikola Topić will probably come in and average a triple double this season to tide them over.
That’s a “comeback underdog” mentality team.
I expect them to be fully disrespected before they comeback and fuck everyone up when it ll really matter.
Seems like their mental fuel.
Becky where are you?
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