{"id":549809,"date":"2026-01-20T23:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T23:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/549809\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T23:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T23:26:12","slug":"knicks-are-blown-out-booed-and-losing-control-of-a-season-with-championship-aspirations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/549809\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks are blown out, booed and losing control of a season with championship aspirations"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 As boos rained down while his team walked off the court after trailing Dallas by 30 points<\/a>, Knicks coach Mike Brown decided it would be a waste of time to talk Xs and Os in the locker room.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was nothing to be said at halftime except for lock in and do your … do your job,\u201d Brown said Monday, catching himself when he started to use an expletive during his press conference.<\/p>\n

His message might’ve been hard to hear, anyway, above the fans at Madison Square Garden who were loudly showing how fed up they are with a team that’s lost control of a season which had championship aspirations.<\/p>\n

The Knicks have gone from NBA Cup champions to not even being able to rule out the play-in tournament with a January freefall, losing for the ninth time in 11 games with their 114-97 loss to the Mavericks.<\/p>\n

As for what’s gone wrong since the Knicks raised the Cup last month in Las Vegas?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s been a lot of things to pinpoint, but I mean as a team we know what we have to do,\u201d captain Jalen Brunson said. \u201cIt\u2019s either we do it, we care enough to do it, or we don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brunson was announced as an All-Star starter earlier Monday, then he and fellow starter Josh Hart were cleared to return from injuries. It had the makings of a celebratory day inside Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n

Instead, the Knicks were behind 16-4 minutes into the game and 75-45 just before halftime.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven’t seen this kind of effort that we had today. It was embarrassing,\u201d Hart said.<\/p>\n

Brown read off the stats that showed just how embarrassing: 27 fast-break points for the Mavericks in the first half and 28 in the paint \u2014 against an injury-depleted opponent without a true post-up player, he noted.<\/p>\n

Brown inherited a talented and veteran roster when the Knicks surprisingly fired Tom Thibodeau despite reaching the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in 25 years. He had the Knicks off to a 23-9 start, but they are now 25-18 and Brunson was asked how the team starts a soul-searching process.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should\u2019ve started a couple week sago but we’ve got to start tomorrow,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Brunson was seen during the game televised nationally on NBC trying to urge on his teammates during a second-quarter timeout<\/a>, but wouldn’t say afterward what his message was. Nor could he or Brown explain the no-show in the first half.<\/p>\n

The boos largely stopped in the second half, though they returned in the fourth quarter when Karl-Anthony Towns was subbed out of the game. Towns said he understood the frustration on a day the Knicks not only didn’t win but didn’t \u201creally have a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFans are doing their part and we\u2019ve got to do our part,\u201d Towns said. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 As boos rained down while his team walked off the court after trailing Dallas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17511,3376,17512,17510,2097,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-549809","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ap-online-sports-headlines","9":"tag-ap-top-news","10":"tag-ap-top-news-l-twc-regions","11":"tag-ap-top-news-sports","12":"tag-associated-press","13":"tag-basketball","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115930017701924225","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549809","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=549809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}