Off-court turmoil and on-court woes: How the Knicks' title defense got chaotic -- fast

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  Vincent GoodwillNov 3, 2026, 07:00 AM ET

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THE VISUAL WAS telling, if not stark.

The Philadelphia 76ers moved the ball all over their NBA Cup-adorned court while the New York Knicks scrambled to catch up, reminiscent of how the reigning champions ran things in the second round of last season's playoffs when they won 15 of their final 16 games, including 13 straight.

This time, the Knicks weren't taking over Xfinity Mobile Arena. They didn't get 3-pointers from Josh Hart or Miles McBride or Jalen Brunson after good ball movement. Instead, 76ers star Tyrese Maxey was driving down the lane for an easy dunk.

Sixers fans chanted "MVP" for Maxey instead of being drowned out by their rivals who made the trek down I-95. LeBron James, after a tip-in that sealed the game, basked in the love as the newest addition to this rivalry. And after Philadelphia handed New York its fourth loss of the season, a 98-93 defeat, Hart carried a bloody bruise atop his freshly braided head.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

If "easy" was the word used to describe the Knicks' spring, they haven't had a moment of ease since. Off the court, the team has been plagued by headlines about contract extension talks being paused for its stars until season's end and championship ring controversy. On the court, they've posted a 3-4 record, ranked 22nd in offense, and shot 35.7% from 3-point range, slightly above league average.

Early returns have the Knicks often looking like two different teams within the same night, sometimes the same quarter. Before, when the Knicks would go on one of those devastating runs of ball-popping offense and suffocating defense, teams would cower.

You could feel it. Momentum building, an almost inevitable feeling that everything would eventually go the Knicks' way -- a massive factor in their record 14.9 point differential in the playoffs.

Now, teams merely wait out the Knicks, knowing an opening is coming.

"One thing I see, when we get those runs, we start to look like the team we've been in the past. [Then] we get a little comfortable," Brunson said following the loss to the Orlando Magic. "We've got to continue to put our foot on the gas and execute like we did last year."

Coach Mike Brown didn't deny his team has gotten off to a lethargic start. His task of getting this team to repeat as champions is tough enough: The parity era of eight champions in the past eight years is the longest such stretch in NBA history. Only last season's Thunder even made it out of the second round in pursuit of defending their title.

It could be the competition catching up to the Knicks, or the uncertainty of player contracts having a very human effect. But to his credit, Brown is focusing on the long game and not the panic that can set in with a misfortunate start to the season.

"This is a new season. It's a new team, and we're going to have challenges in front of us," Brown said. "It's like climbing a mountain. You know, sometimes you go 100 yards, but you might get knocked back 5 yards.

"You regroup as a team, and you figure out how to keep going forward the right way by making sure we embrace the process."

IT'S NOT UNCOMMON to see Hart stewing after a bad game or a bad stretch. More than his buddy-cop relationship with Brunson, he is the emotional center of the Knicks and has been since he arrived in 2023 at the trade deadline.

When the Knicks lost three straight games late last season, culminating in a 17-point road loss to the Rockets in Houston, Hart called it out, claiming the next night in Memphis was a must-win game.

"We're not going in the right direction," he said that evening.

The Knicks responded by winning the next five games before resting their regulars in the season finale, paving the way for their dominant playoff run.

Hart doesn't mind saying the uncomfortable thing. But with his contract status up in the air, will he hesitate should an issue arise?

"I guarantee you, I'm going to be sitting here rock bottom," Hart told ESPN. "I don't think I'm ever going to be on my high horse, either.

"We're in New York. Everything rides on the next game. We go on a 10-game winning streak and the next game we lose, they're ready to burn the place down. We know what it is. It's the tough part of being in New York."

Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla, whose team handed the Knicks their second loss of this season, understands how hard it is to move past a loss.

"I don't think the psychological wars ever end after a game, I think it goes on for you as long as you're in it," Mazzulla said. "Every team brings in scars from the past."

Brown has pointed to on-ball defense, indecision on offense and his players standing around when plays break down as culprits for the slow start. According to NBA.com, the Knicks trail only the Houston Rockets and Charlotte Hornets in frequency of shots late in the shot clock (four seconds or less), and shooting 28.8% in those situations ranks them behind only the Portland Trail Blazers in efficiency -- they were best in the league last season.

Usually, that's Brunson time, as he did so often in the playoffs. But the magic hasn't been there to start the season.

The Knicks haven't come back from big deficits the way they did last season, when they rallied from double digits in six playoff games, the largest being a 29-point comeback over the San Antonio Spurs to win Game 4 of the Finals.

Have they lulled themselves into a false sense of security with all those improbable comebacks? Will they dig themselves a hole too deep to emerge, and what's the cost of playing that way consistently?

"I've said in the past it's important to learn from wins, obviously, you learn from losses as well," Brunson said Friday in Philadelphia. "There's been plenty of times we learned from being down what we can do. And in that same game, made adjustments to where we weren't down anymore. We have to put a full 48 minutes together."

The 76ers, a team still building sweat equity after trading for Jaylen Brown and James in the offseason, exposed what appears to be the Knicks' kryptonite: speed.

"Sometimes it takes us a little longer to get into the game. Whether that's the flow, whether that's fatigue," Hart said. "Not relying on these comebacks because it's taxing."

"We all feel the fatigue. We've got to fight through it. It's six games in, we've got to find a way to get our bodies ready to play. Mentally we're there; we've got find it physically."

When Brunson was asked about it, he dismissed it flippantly: "Josh said he feels the fatigue? Josh is old as s---."

It is not just Brunson and Hart who bear those scars. It took swingman Mikal Bridges four games before he connected on a 3-pointer, and seven games before he even attempted a free throw. Finals MVP Brunson is shooting at career-low marks from the field and from 3.

And Brown is toggling between Andre Drummond and James Wiseman as backup centers in an effort to replace Mitchell Robinson, who signed a free agent deal with the Celtics when the cost-conscious Knicks failed to retain him. New York has felt the impact of losing Mitchell, particularly in efficiency: Robinson shot 72% from the field in 2025-26, while Drummond hit 47% last season and is shooting just 46% so far in this one. Wiseman is 0-5 from the field.

McBride said it's not just up to Brunson and Hart to speak up; this team is self-aware and mature enough to have those hard conversations.

"It's open," McBride told ESPN. "Anybody can step up, whether it's the [bench] guys or starters. That's the thing about this team, our chemistry is so good and we have a lot of trust because we see each other putting forth a lot of work."

Brown, for his part, is not afraid to speak up, either.

When the Knicks' season reached a breaking point last spring, down 2-1 to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round, Brown challenged Towns to get the ball more and be aggressive with it. It turned around their entire fortunes and led to the record playoff winning streak and finish through the NBA Finals.

"I'm going to keep it real," Brown said in early October. "If there's something in front of us, I'm not a fan of having an elephant in the room. I'll address it. I don't care if it's Jalen or KAT or OG [Anunoby]."

The Knicks won't catch anyone off guard this time. And their 3-4 record has them ranked No. 8 in the East.

Perhaps for his own sanity, Brown said he evaluates the season in five-game increments. Brunson believes the first month or so of games will be revealing.

"I think everyone in the East knows each other," Towns told ESPN. "This is our third year now with each other, so you know, it's rare. That's one of our advantages."

He compared it to James going to the Miami Heat in summer 2010 and how it changed the tone of the East for the entire decade.

"At the end of the day, people knew, when LeBron and the big three were there, you had to go out there and beat them," Towns said. "Everyone brings their best against the New York Knicks. You've got to protect the jersey, the city at all costs."

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76ers spoil Knicks' ring night with win at the Garden

BROWN KEPT A steely face, giving nothing away when asked whether he had received his championship ring -- the latest in a string of less-than-flattering headlines since the team's title in June.

It had been over a week since news broke that New York assistant coaches did not receive their championship rings on opening night. Additionally, some employees who had yet to receive their rings had been sent a phishing email from Madison Square Garden security that stated their "Employee Championship Ring is here."

"I'm not going to talk about that ring stuff, as you can imagine," Brown said, despite speculation that the ring box he was handed was either empty or contained someone else's ring. "I'm not going to get into any of that."

It's true to Brown's character. In his first year as Knicks coach, his gift was his ability to avoid making waves -- and lead the team to its first championship in 53 years, of course.

Brown knows the path to another ring will be even harder. He saw it firsthand as an assistant coach with the Golden State Warriors, who added Kevin Durant to a team that had won 73 regular-season games the season before. The Warriors cruised through the playoffs in 2017, winning their first 15 games, but the next season they were nearly knocked out of the conference finals by the Rockets.

And that was before the NBA's rules made it harder for teams to establish and maintain dominance.

But even more telling is that fact that the teams that have repeated since the millennium have been headlined by James, Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and Stephen Curry -- players on the short list of all-timers.

Fittingly, Mazzulla understands the road Brown is journeying. After a 64-win season that culminated in a 16-3 run through the playoffs and the 2024 NBA title, Mazzulla's Celtics followed it up with 61 wins in 2025, entering the playoffs as a defending champion many believed had a great chance at repeating.

But they ran into the Knicks in the Eastern Conference semifinals, and the atrophy of the previous few seasons began to show. Jayson Tatum was the biggest casualty, tearing his right Achilles in Game 4 in New York as he desperately tried to get the Celtics back into a series they'd fallen behind in.

"That's the competitive realm you're in. Once you're there, you have to trick yourself as if you've never been there," Mazzulla said. "But at the same time, two years away from that, every loss is more painful than it was three years ago. You have to treat yourself as if you're more desperate than everybody else."

But the additional games add up, along with the breakneck pace of today's NBA. That has potentially played a part in the fate of the 2025 champion Thunder, who have four rotation players dealing with major injuries that could derail their season. Like Mazzulla's Celtics, who went to the Finals in 2022 before their breakthrough win in 2024, the Thunder have stacked multiple deep playoff runs -- a problem this Knicks team is also facing.

Brunson has played 61 playoff games since coming to New York -- 37 in the past two seasons. Same for Hart. Anunoby joined the Knicks three years ago and has played 44 postseason games with the franchise and 71 overall dating back to his days in Toronto. Towns reached the conference finals in Minnesota the season before being traded to the Knicks, so that adds up to 53 games in the past three seasons.

The bill on that could come due sooner than anyone expected.

The Knicks are in contract limbo with three key players, after tabling all contract extension talks on Oct. 9. Owner James Dolan said this summer that New York wouldn't dip into the punitive second apron to keep the team together.

Hart has a team option and on media day said there hadn't been any discussions on a new deal. Towns is eligible for a four-year, $276 million deal. Before talks were halted, the Knicks' offer was at $200 million, which represents a pay cut from his current salary (four years, $220.4 million).

Towns hoped for a contract extension at the start of last season and didn't get it. The disappointment was quiet, but he played through an up-and-down regular season as he and Brown struggled to get on the same page; then it clicked in the postseason.

He's prepared for a similar process.

"I mean, we did it all last year," Towns told ESPN. "You're in New York, you've got to play through distractions; that's what comes with playing here. There's a lot of pressure, a lot of noise."

"But as long as this locker room, which has shown it can do, stays together and continues to just believe and fall into each other when things get tough, we can do something special."

Towns pointed to the Knicks' struggles after they won the NBA Cup last season, an ugly 2-9 stretch from Dec. 31 to Jan. 19, as proof they're built to handle adversity.

"We didn't look our best version, and we heard about it," Towns said. "This team continued to fall into each other instead of splitting away and ... separating. We got closer and closer."

In Philadelphia, Towns said: "We have to find a way to be that magical team we were last year. You don't want to wait to find that magic. Lightning don't strike twice."