Knicks try to get their sense of urgency back
Knicks guard Jalen Brunson and guard Mikal Bridges look on against the Philadelphia 76ers in the first half of an NBA basketball game at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Yes, I get it. It costs a lot of money to attend a Knicks game.
According to an early 2025 season poll by Action Network, a sports betting site, the Knicks are the most expensive ticket in the NBA. It costs $1,516.23 to take a family of four to Madison Square Garden when you include parking, four hot dogs, two beers and two sodas.
When you drop that kind of coin on a family holiday experience, you want to see a good game. If not a win, then at least a solid effort, which goes a long way toward explaining why Knicks fans started booing when their team fell behind by 26 points in the third quarter of a 111-99 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Friday night.
Heading into Saturday night’s game against the Philadelphia 76ers, you can bet the Knicks didn’t want to hear it from their fans two nights in a row. And they certainly didn’t want to lose three games in a row for only the second time this season. One look at the starting lineup and you knew the Knicks thought it was important that they bounce back and have a strong game against the 76ers in the second game of a home back-to-back.
To counter Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid, they brought back some giants of their own, starting both Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson. Towns missed the loss to Atlanta with a stomach illness and Robinson had missed three straight games as part of the team's load management strategy.
The game marked the first time that Robinson has played Embiid since the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs in 2024. In Game 3 of that series, Embiid grabbed Robinson’s right leg as he went up for a layup. Robinson has blamed that foul for an ankle injury that led to his having offseason surgery.
Mike Brown said the problems in the Knicks' two losses weren’t so much a lack of effort as they were a lack of urgency.
“The sense of urgency has to be there for us for as close to 48 minutes as possible,” Brown said Saturday in his pregame news conference. “It’s tough to do it for 48. Everyone has a lapse. But our sense of urgency has to be at a high level, especially when it comes to transition. Our sense of urgency wasn’t always there.”
That need to play with a sense of urgency and get back in the win column was particularly important considering whom the Knicks play next. The Knicks (23-11 entering Saturday's game) are locked in a battle for the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference with the Detroit Pistons (25-9), and the two teams will meet for the first time this season on Monday in Detroit.
It will be the first game the Knicks have played in Detroit since Jalen Brunson hit a three-pointer with 4.3 seconds left in Game 6 of the first round of the playoffs to eliminate the Pistons last season. Though Detroit is expected to be without several key players, including Jalen Duren and Tobias Harris, this team has been waiting for a rematch for months. And any team that has Cade Cunningham is one that can pose problems for the Knicks or any other team.
The Knicks didn’t want to walk into Detroit with a three-game losing streak. December showed them what kind of team they can be. It was a heady month for the players and the Knicks' long-suffering fans as they went 11-4, posted a seven-game winning streak and won the NBA Cup by beating San Antonio, the second-best team in the Western Conference, in a high-stakes final.
Brown, of course, knows none of that matters to fans who have saved their money for one big night at Madison Square Garden. What matters is the game right in front of them.
“I don’t even know what our record was in December,” he said. “You win a lot of games and can feel it. As a coach, you just try to preach the right things to your team no matter what you are currently doing. If I don’t see something right, it’s my job to let them know.”
And if he doesn’t, the fans certainly will.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
