This is not a game the Knicks should have lost. It’s certainly not a game they should have lost by double digits.
Yet here the Knicks are, on the receiving end of the regular season broomsticks broken out by the Detroit Pistons, who — without their two centers Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart–beat the Knicks handily to advance to a 3-0 record with a 126-111 victory a Madison Square Garden on Thursday.
The Knicks have now lost to the Pistons by 38, 31 and 15 points. The next time they see Detroit will be in the Eastern Conference Finals provided both teams finish top-three and win the opening two rounds. And while the Knicks will have the memory of their first-round playoff victory over the Pistons last season — a playoff victory that followed an embarrassing 1-3 run against Detroit in regular season — the Pistons now have something far greater.
They have a chip on their shoulder. And they have all the confidence in the world after toying with a team that should have their number on paper: a team that looks less of a contender with every loss to a team with a winning record this season.
Yet this is the most frustrating part of your 2025-26 New York Knicks, the Mike Brown remix for a group that made it to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in a quarter century, only to fire their head coach weeks after elimination and usher in a full-scale upheaval of the team’s identity this year.
Fifty-six games into Brown’s tenure as head coach, the Knicks still don’t look connected on offense, no more glaring example apparent than Karl-Anthony Towns’ lack of involvement against a team without any veteran player 6-foot-9 or taller.
Towns scored just two points and took only three shots in the first half alone before doing most of his damage in the third quarter. He finished with 21 points, 11 rebounds and four assists, struggling both to find the ball, make open shots and play with force against defenders smaller than him on the night.
The Knicks’ $54 million man found himself on the bench much of the fourth quarter. He was hardly the team’s biggest issue on the night. And a Knicks team that couldn’t take advantage of its glaring size advantage started the night just 1-of-16 from downtown in a 6-of-31 three-point shooting performance on the night.
That was only one end of the equation. The Knicks were even worse on the other.
The Knicks traded five first-round picks for Mikal Bridges and sent RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley to the Toronto Raptors, then signed both to long-term contract extensions totaling $362 million to stop players specifically like Cade Cunningham, a crafty play-making wing who’s elevated himself into Most Valuable Player of the Year conversations averaging 25.3 points, 9.6 assists and 5.6 rebounds per game on the year.
Cunningham torched the defensive duo known as “Wingstop” for 42 points on 17-of-34 shooting from the field to go with 13 assists and eight rebounds on the night.
Meanwhile, the Knicks got 33 points on 20 shot attempts from Jalen Brunson, who gave his team a fighting chance.
Which brings us to the third issue plaguing these Knicks: Bridges has been inconsistent, oftentimes anemic on offense, a lingering problem underscored by an eight-point performance against the Pistons on Thursday. Bridges shot four-of-nine from the field and missed a few easy looks at the rim. His 15.9 points per game are the fewest he’s averaged since the 2021-22 season with the Phoenix Suns.
The solution falls on Brown to fix, and fix fast with close to 25 games left on the schedule until the playoffs begin. The Pistons are carrying all the confidence in the world, while the Knicks lack it when the moments matter more, now 12-15 against teams with winning records on the season, while the East’s No. 1 seed is elated to have one up on the team they could very well see in their playoff hunt.
“The regular season matters. How you present yourself every single night matters. I think people for whatever reason because there’s 82 games, people want to devalue the regular season, but the regular season matters to help you get ready for where you’re going, and those experiences matter,” Pistons head coach JB Bickerstaff said ahead of tipoff at Madison Square Garden on Thursday. “Confidence against an opponent matters. Belief that you can beat an opponent matters, especially when you tie in the experience of going through a playoff series and having that ability to take the next step.”
