On December 3, 2022, the Knicks were embarrassed at home against Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks on a weekend matinee at the World’s Most Famous Arena. The Knicks led by 15 in the second quarter behind strong defense, but ultimately took their foot off the gas and got absolutely blitzed in the second half.
MSG wasn’t happy. A 38-12 run to start the second half turned a 68-68 game into a blowout. The Knicks were struggling badly and would drop to 10-13, including 4-7 at home. Tom Thibodeau was on the hot seat and there were rumors that a loss to Cleveland the next day might’ve cost him his job.
Of course, we know what happened from there. Thibs removed Cam Reddish and Derrick Rose from the rotation permanently to further feature Quentin Grimes. The Knicks won that game against the Cavs and went on a furious charge to win 47 games and a playoff series.
We don’t know if things are going to reach that perilous position in 2025-26, but with a mountain of expectations and a deep struggle to start the new year, the Knicks needed to enforce their will on a severely shorthanded Mavericks team.
They did not. They got absolutely blitzed.
Dallas improved to 18-26. The Knicks lost their ninth game in their last 11 despite welcoming Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart to the lineup. They continued to struggle shooting, continuing a recent slump, but the biggest issue today was the defense, which could look more like this meme than professional athletes paid millions to get stops.
I’m not sure how a team that started 23-9, won the NBA Cup, and looked cohesive on both ends turned into this mess overnight. The offense began short-circuiting on January 2 and hasn’t woken up yet (aside from a few stretches), and the defense has been bad for a while now. It’s the dog days of an NBA season, but it doesn’t make anything about this stretch excusable.
Brunson had 22, KAT had 22 and 18, and Mitch played well. Deuce somehow had a positive plus-minus. That’s about it. Mavericks go wire-to-wire and win 114-97. Bleh.
Dallas got off to a hot start in the first four minutes, taking advantage of poor transition defense and cashing a trio of triples, two by Max Christie and one by residential Knick killer Naji Marshall. The Knicks continued a concerning trend of late on offense, starting ice cold from the field despite good looks from Brunson, Bridges, and Towns. Mike Brown called his first timeout with 8:14 left, trailing 13-4.
It didn’t look better out of the timeout, as Towns turned it over and Bridges missed a corner 3 shortly after. After another Christie 3, the Knicks busted the drought on a nice pick-and-roll that led to a dunk by Mitchell Robinson. A few possessions later, the captain hit Big Mitch again on a pretty lob at the end of the shot clock.
Unfortunately, the defense continued to be porous, and the team still shot threes like they had the Ben Simmons disease. After closing the Suns game 1-for-11 from three, they started this one 0-for-9. This is somehow not the first 1-for-20 stretch we’ve had this week. Compare that to a hopelessly shorthanded Mavericks team that started 6-for-10.
Still, Brunson tried to will his team back in it after an early 15-point deficit. After some pretty passing early, he called bank on an and-1 before a TV timeout and came right back for a sweet floater after some much-needed off-ball movement.
The Knicks closed the first quarter with an innovative lineup, sitting Brunson and Towns for a bench lineup alongside OG Anunoby. Mitch feasted on the boards as usual with two putbacks to give him eight points in the period. Klay Thompson turned back the clock with a pair of threes late, and the Mavericks took a 31-22 lead into the second.
Cooper Flagg was making his MSG debut today, and he looked to take over to start the second with three consecutive buckets, but the Knicks’ offense started to heat up. Towns finished strong, Mikal broke the 3-ball skid, and Towns ran down the lane for a thunderous jam.
Finally, this started to look like a modern-day basketball game with scoring on both ends. The non-Brunson lineup was making shots, but they couldn’t get stops. The tandem of Flagg and Thompson started the quarter hot and the Mavs battled a small Knicks run to go up 43-31 and force another timeout.
That timeout didn’t help. Remember when I said they figured out how to score without Brunson? The next two minutes produced some of the clunkiest offense you’ll ever see, with contested Deuce McBride mid-range shots and KAT missing layups while they get burned in transition. In the blink of an eye, the Mavs were on an 11-0 run, and the deficit was 18 points as MSG began to boo.
After it got to 20, you got a brief run from KAT where he hit a corner three, and he got a dunk in transition after a Josh Hart steal, but that run came to a screeching halt on an interesting stepback three that somehow turned into a Flagrant 1 on Towns because he kicked Dwight Powell in the groin. One step forward, two steps back.
There’s always a point in a blowout where things just get away from you and in that second quarter, things got away from the Knicks.
It’s not even worth talking about the rest of that quarter. Christie nailed six threes in the first half, a Mavericks team that is the 26th best shooting team in basketball was shooting 60% from behind the arc, and the Knickerbockers were booed off the court with an unfathomable 75-47 deficit on national television.
The largest halftime deficit in a decade.
The Mavs got the lead up to 30 early in the third, but the Knicks showed some increased effort on both ends to slowly shave the lead down. Now, they still couldn’t make threes (aside from KAT, I guess), and they still got absolutely grilled by Christie, but the effort was better.
Every time they seemed to be going on a run, though, they missed an open shot, missed free throws, or allowed an open three. It was always something, even if the team was able to get the lead down to 19.
This was an interesting game from Karl-Anthony Towns. He missed so many close shots, to the point where I started thinking his struggles had produced a yips-like effect. Yet, he was more aggressive than he has been of late, which is encouraging. His jumper looked cleaner. Yet, he was still doing dumb things. One big shrug emoji from this game.
Was also a weird game for Brunson, who just looked a tick off. He was missing some open shots that he had and seemed to be caught inbetween getting his own shot and playmaking for his teammates. It’s fine, I guess, but not when everyone else is struggling and the defense is this bad.
There was a funny sequence with two minutes left in the half that encapsulated this game. Brunson got a floater partially blocked off the glass, Mitch missed a putback dunk, and Deuce missed a contested mid-range. Nothing’s going right.
Dallas fell asleep at the wheel briefly, but refocused to get the lead back to 25 in the dying seconds of the quarter. The Knicks won the third, but trailed 94-71.
A sub-plot of this game that was at least interesting as the Knicks ran out the clock was Towns and Powell. Towns kept extending his knee into the groin of Powell, and it finally got called with 10 minutes left. The funny part of this one was one where Powell kicked Towns in the crotch, albeit after the play.
Some brutal missed open threes over the next few minutes prevented the Knicks from making this interesting, but they cut the deficit to 18 with 7:12 left after Naji Marshall finally started missing and KAT hit Bridges for a lob layup to force a rare timeout from Jason Kidd.
Lead was down to 17 on a Hart 3 with 6:15 left. Down to 15 on a Brunson floater with 5:15 left. Just when it looked like maybe they’d make this interesting, they gave up a putback layup to Moussa Cisse, and then Hart turned it over on the inbound.
Mike Brown emptied the bench at 2:45 and that was that. Some notes I came up with during the game:
- Fastbreak points were 32-4 Dallas. The Knicks aren’t a big transition team, but goodness.
- One of Mitchell Robinson’s better games. In a first half where everyone was awful, he had 12 and 12. He finished with 12 points and 15 rebounds in 19 minutes. NYK also won the possession battle with 17 offensive rebounds.
- The Knicks have been one of the worst shooting teams in January. They’ve had brutal offensive stretches, and today was another rough one. 40% from the field and 29% from 3. It’s the fourth time in January they’ve shot 40% or worse from the field.
- Max Christie’s eight three-pointers are tied for the third most ever by an opponent at MSG. Only 2013 Steph Curry and… 2019 Devonte Graham(?) have more.
- Visually, I thought Klay was having a “turn back the clock” game. I checked the statsheet, and he had 14 points on meh shooting and was minus-8. Alright, then.
- While the offense never got better, I appreciate the Knicks’ increased effort defensively in the second half. The Mavs shot 11-for-20 from 3 in the first half, but just 3-for-9 in the second half. Knicks held them to 11-for-30 from the field overall and forced nine turnovers after allowing them to shoot 54% in the first half.
You can’t call any game a gimme with the team’s recent struggles, but you hope a game against the crosstown rival Nets will wake them up. Knicks-Nets at MSG on Wednesday, January 21, at 7:30 pm.
The last Mavericks blowout in MSG was an inflection point for a struggling team. The team looked inward and the coaching staff made a change. Can we get a similar experience in a similar circumstance?
That’s out of our control as fans.
