Steve Popper: Knicks' recent hot stretch should not be the reason they stand still at the deadline
The Knicks' Mikal Bridges, left, OG Anunoby, middle, and Tyler Kolek celebrate against the Raptors at Scotiabank Arena on Jan. 28, 2026 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Credit: Getty Images/Cole Burston
TORONTO — If the next week is going to be cluttered with rumors and conversation debating where Giannis Antetokounmpo will land, the Knicks made a case to back up their belief that they already have a championship-caliber team.
It may just be their belief right now, but the Knicks seemed in position to give away a game Wednesday night at Scotiabank Arena — missing two key players and relying on Jalen Brunson (illness) and Josh Hart (ankle soreness) to will themselves into action — and instead responded with an unlikely 119-92 win over the Raptors to push their way to a game up on Toronto and a tie with the Celtics for second place in the Eastern Conference.
Is that enough to stand pat when nearly every team will be lining up to put an offer on the table for the Bucks superstar ahead of the Feb. 5 trade deadline? Probably not, and it shouldn’t be. But for a night, the Knicks, with their fourth straight win, eased the pressure and desperation.
With the market for Antetokounmpo taking shape -- ESPN reported Wednesday that after months of will they or won’t they, the Bucks have begun fielding offers -- the Knicks enter the bidding with one advantage: Antetokounmpo’s reported preference to land at Madison Square Garden.
His desire to depart Milwaukee, where he not only will go down as one of the greatest players in franchise history, is based on a desire to contend for a title. The Knicks, since winning the NBA Cup in December, have shown little sign of that, losing nine of 11 games before this current streak righted the franchise.
Jalen Brunson is the centerpiece of the Knicks, a beloved team captain, an All-NBA talent and the one piece they’d likely not make available in a package for Antetokounmpo.
The Knicks went all-in before last season -- at least we all thought so -- when they traded five first-round picks to obtain Mikal Bridges and then traded for Karl-Anthony Towns. In the first season with this group in place, the Knicks reached the Eastern Conference finals, but that clearly wasn’t enough. Coach Tom Thibodeau was fired and Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan said last month in a radio interview that he believes this team should reach the NBA Finals and can win a title.
It’s worth asking, have the Knicks hurt their own chances by struggling to find a comfortable fit this season for Towns? It’s fair to point out that his value is not right now where it was at the end of last season, when he was selected to an All-NBA third team for the third time in his career. He has struggled this season in a way he rarely has in his career — shooting the lowest percentage from three-point range since his rookie year, and more alarming, by far the worst from inside the arc of his career.
On Wednesday, Towns shot 3-for-11 for eight points but did pull down 22 rebounds. And he insisted that any talk about trades — and his place in them — are not on his mind.
“I feel like I’ve been in trade rumors a lot for a lot of times, for a year . . . ,” Towns said. “That don’t matter to me. I’m not looking at social media or none of that stuff. I focus on the job on hand, which is trying to get wins every single night.
"As long as I do that, I do my job, I go home happy and I feel accomplished. I’m not worried about what anybody got to say or people write or anything like that.”
With Deuce McBride and Mitchell Robinson both out on a second night of a back-to-back set with left ankle injury management and Brunson fighting through an illness, Bridges picked up the slack after a slow start, scoring 30 points and shooting 12-for-15. Hart shrugged off the ankle soreness that had him questionable until game time and scored 22 points. OG Anunoby, back where he got his start before the last major in-season trade the Knicks swung brought him to New York, had 26 points.
The Knicks fell behind by as many as 12 but took their first lead of the game with 2:59 left in the third period and ending the quarter on a 13-0 run for an 82-70 lead. After trailing 66-55 with eight minutes left in the third, they outscored Toronto 64-26 the rest of the way.
Knicks coach Mike Brown, for his part, is trying to ignore the talk and wants his team to do the same.
“I’ve got no control over it,” said Brown, who noted that it’s all in the hands of the front office. “You know how rumors fly left and right every day. Now what I do generally talk about is ignoring the noise. Not just during, quote-unquote, this trade time, but throughout the course of the year. you’ve got to have a bunker mentality.
“There’s a lot of noise out there, whether you’re in New York, there was noise in Sacramento, there was noise in Golden State. There’s noise all over where we’ve been.”
Hart echoed that, noting, “I don’t really care honestly until something happens. This is good content for people to get through until the trade deadline. I don’t know. Can’t really let that stuff affect you or get to you — 90% of that stuff doesn’t actually materialize. You just kind of go with it.”
Could the Knicks fashion a deal, utilizing other assets, expanding it to a three-team trade (almost certainly a necessity in this case), or even cast off pieces such as Bridges, Anunoby, McBride or Robinson to acquire picks to include in a deal? Sure, and maybe the most important thing to consider is just how desperate the Knicks are right now — or will be in the summer.
The expectations have been voiced, and right now they don’t look like they are being realized. Does that lead to desperation? That might be the Bucks' best chance, that even with Antetokounmpo plotting his way out, they might not be the most desperate team in the deal.
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
