{"id":550776,"date":"2026-01-21T10:22:41","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T10:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/550776\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T10:22:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T10:22:41","slug":"jalen-brunson-called-players-only-meeting-after-knicks-lost-to-mavericks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/550776\/","title":{"rendered":"Jalen Brunson Called Players-Only Meeting After Knicks Lost To Mavericks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>All-Star point guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/brunsja01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=dallashoopsjournal.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-20_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Jalen Brunson<\/a> called a players-only meeting after the New York Knicks lost to the Dallas Mavericks, according to NBA insider <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/47674001\/jalen-brunson-calls-players-only-meeting-amid-knicks-struggles-sources-say\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ramona Shelburne of ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Knicks lost to the Mavericks at home by a final score of 114-97 on MLK Day. Brunson and Co. are 25-18 on the season, good for third place in the Eastern Conference standings. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cBrunson\u2019s message to teammates after their ninth loss in 11 games, according to multiple sources, was that the Knicks needed to find answers for their poor play in January among themselves, rather than look to the coaching staff for solutions,\u201d Shelburne wrote. <\/p>\n<p>The Knicks made the conference finals last season for the first time since 2000. They lost to the Indiana Pacers in five games and then shockingly fired head coach Tom Thibodeau. <\/p>\n<p>New York hired former Sacramento Kings head coach Mike Brown as Thibodeau\u2019s replacement. The Knicks won the NBA Cup in December against the San Antonio Spurs, but they have struggled on both ends of the court since then.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe all need to do some soul-searching,\u201d Knicks forward\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hartjo01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=dallashoopsjournal.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-20_bbr\">Josh Hart<\/a>\u00a0said after the Mavericks game. \u201cRight now we\u2019re playing embarrassing basketball. We\u2019re not executing on the offensive end. Defensively, we\u2019ve been abysmal. We\u2019ve been terrible defensively all year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Knicks have discussed a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/t\/townska01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=dallashoopsjournal.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-19_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a>\u00a0trade with three teams, according to NBA reporter\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsday.com\/sports\/columnists\/steve-popper\/knicks-mavericks-o8hbscy6\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Steve Popper of\u00a0Newsday<\/a>. The three teams are the Memphis Grizzlies, Orlando Magic and Charlotte Hornets.<\/p>\n<p>New York discussed a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/antetgi01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=dallashoopsjournal.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-19_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a>\u00a0trade with the Milwaukee Bucks in the offseason. Those talks involved Towns, who is making $53.1 million this season.<\/p>\n<p>The 2026 NBA trade deadline is February 5 at 3 p.m. ET. Towns doesn\u2019t have a no-trade clause in his contract, preventing him from controlling his future.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dallashoopsjournal.com\/p\/category\/nba\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Latest NBA News &amp; Rumors<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All-Star point guard Jalen Brunson called a players-only meeting after the New York Knicks lost to the Dallas&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,686,149,4057,288,166,6,3101,6050,191],"class_list":{"0":"post-550776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-mavericks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-mavericks","11":"tag-dallasmavericks","12":"tag-jalen-brunson","13":"tag-mavericks","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-nba-news","16":"tag-nba-rumors","17":"tag-new-york-knicks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115932597184042474","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550776","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=550776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}