SAN ANTONIO \u2014 The Knicks brought in the New Year with an anomaly: a crunch-time failure.<\/p>\n
With Victor Wembanyama out after appearing to hyperextend his knee, the Knicks still squandered a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter and fell Wednesday night to the Spurs, 134-132.<\/p>\n
Jalen Brunson missed two of his big three treys in the final seconds, including the clank with about 15 clicks remaining. That represented New York\u2019s last best chance at another nail-biting win, although a last-gasp jump ball involving Kevin McCullar Jr. would ultimately remove the Knicks\u2019 final breath with seven seconds left.<\/p>\n
Former St. John\u2019s star Julian Champagnie, who scored a game-high 36 points, shoots over Mikal Bridgets during the Knicks\u2019 134-132 loss to the Spurs in San Antonio on Dec. 31, 2025. Daniel Dunn-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just, s\u2013t, excuse my French, but they just outworked us in a lot of ways,\u201d coach Mike Brown said. \u201c[Spurs coach Mitch Johnson] kicked my ass. The rest of the team kicked our ass. We all got our ass kicked today.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Spurs got a career night from St. John\u2019s product Julian Champagnie, who bombed 3-pointers with regularity and finished with 36 points on 11 for 17 from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n
Wembanyama added 31 points before his injury with 10:30 remaining in the fourth quarter. He ultimately returned from the locker room to the bench, witnessing the end of a discouraging evening from New York\u2019s defense.<\/p>\n
The Knicks (23-10) entered the night 19-0 when leading after three quarters. They\u2019re now 19-1.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, it\u2019s our physicality wasn\u2019t good. We haven\u2019t figured out how to be physical for 48 minutes in the last I don\u2019t know how many games,\u201d Brown said. \u201cAnd doing it without fouling. We pick up some silly fouls that we have to do a better job of. I feel everybody understands that. But now we have to go do it. So now our physicality isn\u2019t good. And we just haven\u2019t been able to \u2014 I don\u2019t know we\u2019re tired or what, we haven\u2019t been able to sustain anything defensively for 48 minutes. And we\u2019ve won a lot of games and you want to win games and feel good about it. But at the end of the day, if we don\u2019t figure out how we\u2019re going to sustain what we\u2019re supposed to do on defense for 48 minutes, it\u2019s going to be a long year for us and it\u2019s going to catch up with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brunson scored 29 but shot just 10 for 24. Karl-Anthony Towns fouled out in 33 minutes while scoring 20. But the Knicks, overall, played well offensively while shooting 48 percent from the field and 42.3 percent on 3s.<\/p>\n
Jalen Brunson, who scored 29 points, shoots a 3-pointer during the Knicks\u2019 road loss to the Spurs. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
The problem was the defense. Especially against Champagnie.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe shot the mess out the ball,\u201d Brown said. \u201cI was a little disappointed in our guys because it was almost like we didn\u2019t respect him. We didn\u2019t pick him up in transition. \u2026 He just kept getting look after look after look after look. Wide open. \u2026 I was really disappointed in the way we defended him.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was ugly but the Knicks had plenty of excuses. They were at the end of a long trip and probably road-weary, having spent most of the last three weeks of 2025 sleeping in hotel rooms. They just squeaked by two lesser opponents, the Hawks and Pelicans.<\/p>\n
They were missing two key pieces \u2014 Josh Hart and Mitchell Robinson \u2014 pushing rookie Mohamed Diawara back into the starting lineup. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Spurs (24-9), a borderline contender so long as Wemby isn\u2019t seriously injured, were likely motivated by their recent loss to the Knicks in the NBA Cup final, not to mention their consecutive defeats at home to the Cavs and Jazz.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey know what happened in the cup, they\u2019re going to play with a little extra edge,\u201d Brown said. \u201cEspecially they lost a couple here now lately.\u201d<\/p>\n
It looked and felt like a schedule loss for Brown\u2019s squad. Then they hung around despite a lackluster defensive effort, until they let go of the rope.<\/p>\n
Before Wednesday, the Knicks had won 15 of 18 games, a stretch that included the NBA Cup title. It had everybody giddy about the possibilities.<\/p>\n
Victor Wembanyam grimaces in pain after hyperextending his knee and being forced to exit the game in the second half of the Knicks\u2019 loss to the Spurs. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Brown, for the first time publicly, spoke confidently about the Knicks chances of winning the championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou come here you want to win,\u201d the coach said. \u201cYou look at a team on paper, you\u2019re around the team a little bit. You\u2019re like, \u2018OK man, we legitimately have a chance to like win this whole thing.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cBut in terms of my preparation with the team and all that, I mean, it\u2019s all the same. We\u2019re trying to friggin\u2019 win and win at a high level. We have a chance here because of the roster, the guys on the roster and the coaches I have on my staff and Leon [Rose] and Jim Dolan. We\u2019ve got a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
One defeat isn\u2019t going to change Brown\u2019s mind about title hopes. But it did remind him that the defense still needs work. A lot of it.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat\u2019s happening on and off the Garden court\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Knicks by Stefan Bondy, a weekly exclusive on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Plus, Brunson and the Knicks finally looked mortal in the clutch.<\/p>\n
They trailed late in the third quarter, the result of a 21-5 Spurs run. But then Brunson finally started hitting shots, and New York went on a 11-0 run and entered the fourth quarter with a 102-93 lead.<\/p>\n
Those circumstances always led to a Knicks victory.<\/p>\n
Until New Year\u2019s Eve.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think at times we think, \u2018We\u2019re good, we\u2019re going to end up winning this, or we\u2019re going to outscore them,\u2019 \u201d Brown said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s not the mentality to have. There has to be a sense of urgency defensively for 48 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2014 The Knicks brought in the New Year with an anomaly: a crunch-time failure. With Victor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,288,4076,304,3357,6,1136,191,3810,3806,66,693],"class_list":{"0":"post-509315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-jalen-brunson","10":"tag-julian-champagnie","11":"tag-knicks","12":"tag-mike-brown","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-knicks","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkknicks","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-victor-wembanyama"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115818446924170118","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}