Knicks Stumble in a Strange, Spiraling Showdown in Boston
Close your eyes for a second and picture a basketball team doing everything right. That was the New York Knicks in the opening stretch against the Celtics. The ball was moving with purpose, every cut was sharp, every shot felt inevitable. Boston couldn’t even dribble without a Knicks defender jumping the route. For a few blissful minutes, it looked like New York had unlocked something close to perfection.
But just as quickly as that perfection appeared, it vanished.
What followed was one of the strangest, most puzzling collapses of the Knicks’ season — a 123-117 loss that wasn’t their worst on paper, but easily their most bewildering. The shift happened midway through the second quarter. New York had been humming, up by six, spraying passes everywhere and playing with total clarity. Then Karl-Anthony Towns began feeling the pressure, both from tight Celtics defense and what he thought were missed calls. Instead of trusting the open man — Josh Hart was literally hands-up, wide open, and perfect from deep — Towns forced his way into double-teams. The ball slipped away. The energy slipped away. The whole vibe flipped.
Even Knicks coach Mike Brown noted it: the team stopped making the simple paint touches and kick-outs that defined their hot start. Instead, frustration at the officials took over, and the offense tightened up. Once the offense stalled, the defense unraveled just as fast. Boston erased a 14-point deficit despite shooting poorly from three because the Knicks stopped helping, stopped rotating, and left teammates on defensive islands.
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Jalen Brunson had his worst outing of the season at possibly the worst time — 6-for-21, uncharacteristic mistakes, and turnovers that sucked momentum out of potential rallies. He didn’t sugarcoat it afterward, saying he didn’t give his team what they needed.
Brown also experimented with small three-guard lineups that didn’t hold up defensively, stretches where New York was outscored badly. By the time the fourth quarter arrived, the Knicks were down 18 and looked like they were ready to pack it in.
And then, just as suddenly as they had fallen apart, they snapped back to life.
Mikal Bridges went off, hitting everything in sight. Towns powered through contact. The defensive intensity finally resembled what the team had been praising all week. The Knicks slashed the deficit to four multiple times, threatening a comeback that felt impossible just minutes earlier. But Boston answered with backbreaking offensive rebounds, second chances that ended New York’s surge for good.
It was a game that showed the full range of the Knicks’ identity this season — flashes of dominance, followed by baffling stretches of stagnation and frustration. They know what winning basketball looks like because they played it for an entire quarter. They just didn’t sustain it.
As Josh Hart put it afterward, the team has to stay locked in on what actually leads to success.
On this bizarre night in Boston, they forgot — and remembered — all of it in the span of 48 unpredictable minutes.
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