The Knicks deserve a little grace. Just not too much.
Because if the NBA Cup has taught the league anything in its brief but revealing history, it’s that winning it does not guarantee postseason success.
The Los Angeles Lakers learned that lesson first. They entered the inaugural 2023 NBA Cup Final at 14-9, lifted the trophy in Las Vegas, then woke up on Jan. 5 with a 17-19 record — losers of 10 of their next 13 games after the confetti settled. The Milwaukee Bucks followed suit a year later, winning the 2024 Cup before dropping five of their next eight games.
Neither team parlayed December glory into spring success. The Bucks finished as the East’s No. 5 seed in 2025. The Lakers scraped into the Play-In Tournament in 2024 and landed the seventh seed out West. Both were bounced in the first round.
Those were the opening chapters of the In-Season Tournament. Year 3 belongs to the Knicks.
And like their predecessors, the Knicks stumbled out of the afterglow. Just as the Lakers and Bucks before them, the Knicks were met with a brutal road-home back-to-back immediately following their Cup triumph. They split it — stealing a Hail Mary win in Indiana before unanswered prayers met them at Madison Square Garden in Friday’s loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.
“Yeah man, we weren’t really looking too far ahead [of the Cup], so we didn’t realize how challenging game two [would be],” Josh Hart said after the loss. “Winning the NBA Cup and then going right into a back-to-back, and then we got a game on Sunday. So we knew it was gonna be a challenge. We’ve just gotta make sure we get our bodies right and get some sleep, get some good food and try to get it back on Sunday.”
The brief skid complicates evaluation. A third of the season is gone, yet the data feels distorted — a championship spike followed by a scheduling crash.
“Prior to the NBA Cup, especially the Final, I liked where we were. I thought we were really trending in the right direction,” head coach Mike Brown said ahead of tipoff against the Miami Heat on Sunday. “It’s a little funky. And we’re trying to navigate our way through making sure we handle the post-Cup.
“So as a coach, when you watch the way we played in those two games, there are things I don’t like, you know? But I’m not gonna beat them up for it, and I’m not gonna belabor it too much because this is uncharted territory for me as a coach and for them as players, too. So I’m not sure [how to assess my team]. I’m not sure, but prior to the championship game, I liked where we were on both sides of the ball.”
Brown has been consistent in one belief: The regular season is not linear. There are peaks. There are valleys. And the climb only gets steeper from here.
Sunday’s matchup against Miami marked the first of 10 projected playoff opponents in the Knicks’ next 11 games. Through February, New York is slated to face 23 playoff teams. It’s already played 16 such games through the season’s first two months.
The schedule hasn’t been neutral, either. The Knicks had the seventh-easiest slate through Dec. 20, according to CraftedNBA. Over the next two weeks, their schedule ranks ninth-toughest.
“You’re not just gonna do this,” Brown said, motioning upward. “As a coach, I’m being greedy right now. I just want to do this (up gesture), but the reality of it is, you’re gonna do this, then you’re gonna take a couple steps backwards, and hopefully it’s a couple and it’s not four, or five, or six steps backwards, and then you’re gonna go here (gestures up) again with it, especially in an 82-game season.
“And so I understand it, and I just have to make sure that I stay here, and I try to continue to help us grow in the right direction and keep the guys uplifted when we’re not playing our best basketball.”
So yes — the Knicks deserve some grace. They earned the right to drop a game that never should’ve been scheduled the way it was.
“You’ve always gotta give yourself some type of grace. [Philadelphia’s] last game was probably five or six days ago,” Hart said. “So it’s an up and down season. You’re gonna have games like this, games where you feel like you can’t find it, when the game is right there and it’s just one extra-effort play and you feel like you can’t get that extra-effort play. So it happens. It’s a long season.”
But grace has limits. This team knows it can’t live off December confetti — not when the Cup is merely the appetizer.
“No [grace],” Jalen Brunson said. “We’ve gotta hold each other to a higher standard. I’ve gotta hold myself to a higher standard. It’s not like we got blown out [on Friday]. It was very winnable. But you’ve gotta give them credit. [Philadelphia] made plays down the stretch and we didn’t, and — no. To answer your question: No [grace].”
