{"id":552594,"date":"2026-01-22T06:11:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T06:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/552594\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T06:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T06:11:12","slug":"nets-suffer-unacceptable-embarrassment-to-knicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/552594\/","title":{"rendered":"Nets suffer &#8216;unacceptable&#8217; embarrassment to Knicks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Nets\u2019 loss wasn\u2019t just humiliating. It was historic.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Brooklyn <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/01\/21\/sports\/knicks-destroy-nets-in-historic-laugher-to-snap-losing-skid\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">got thrashed 120-66 by the Knicks<\/a> in front of a sellout crowd of 19,812 at the Garden that saw a rout for the ages.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Wednesday night marked the biggest margin of victory in Knicks history. The Nets slogged through the lowest-scoring effort in the entire NBA this season, worse than Indiana\u2019s 121-78 loss to Detroit on Jan. 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Cam Thomas reacts during the second quarter of the Nets\u2019 120-66 blowout loss to the Knicks on Jan. 21, 2026 at Madison Square Garden. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n<p>It was just a point shy of the worst margin of defeat by any squad in the league this season, and only Brooklyn\u2019s late 5-0 run in the waning seconds of garbage time against the end of the Knicks\u2019 bench spared them the blushes of the worst rout in franchise history \u2014 their 59-point caning at the Clippers last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It was, in short, embarrassing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just unacceptable,\u201d admitted Noah Clowney. \u201cIt can\u2019t happen that way again. At all.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Coach Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez fell on the proverbial sword afterward, taking the blame. But both the coaches and the veterans \u2014 Nic Claxton, Michael Porter Jr. and Ziaire Williams \u2014 addressed the team in the locker room about the non-effort.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first thing was fight,\u201d Drake Powell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverybody\u2019s on the same page that we shouldn\u2019t be losing by 60,\u201d said Clowney, adding, \u201cDefensively we were disastrous. We didn\u2019t get back for the first part, they lit our ass up for 3, and had everything they wanted.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Michael Porter Jr. drives down court as Jalen Brunson gives chase during the first quarter of the Nets\u2019 ugly blowout loss to the Knicks. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n<p>It was a complete breakdown on both ends.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Nets shot just 29 percent, and 11-for-40 from deep. Even Porter was held to just 12 points, and he was Brooklyn\u2019s leading scorer.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On the other end, it was just as bad. Brooklyn allowed 57 percent shooting, and 16-for-32 from behind the arc. They got battered 56-27 on the glass.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFollow all the basketball buzz in Brooklyn\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Nets by Brian Lewis, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>And in the end it was a 13th straight loss to the Knicks, the longest skid in the history of this rivalry that is almost as one-sided as the Globetrotters and the Generals.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After losing by 36 to the Knicks on Nov. 9, Brooklyn topped that.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTonight was even worse, and I\u2019m the one responsible for it,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez said. \u201cI have to help them better. In the last 12 games, we\u2019ve been poor defensively, poor offensively. And that falls on me. Players are not responsible for it. I\u2019ve gotta make sure that they understand the values that we have and how we want to play.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t like that.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Nets lost in historic fashion. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n<p>Yes, they kept pace a game behind Sacramento for fourth in the lottery race. But that\u2019s no excuse for a non-competitive night like this.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Up 6-4, they gave up 14 unanswered.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Trailing just 30-20, the Nets allowed an 8-0 run.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Rather than rally, Brooklyn folded.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They conceded a 16-0 run at the start of the fourth quarter, and trailed by 59. And this against a struggling Knicks team that had lost nine of 11.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey haven\u2019t been playing well, and they were like, \u2018Well, we\u2019re fittin\u2019 to get us one.\u2019 We came out thinking that we were going to get us one, and they played like they wanted it,\u201d Noah Clowney said. \u201cEven at halftime we felt like if we would\u2019ve hit back, we had an opportunity. But we didn\u2019t. We went out there and they hit us again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Nets\u2019 loss wasn\u2019t just humiliating. It was historic.\u00a0 Brooklyn got thrashed 120-66 by the Knicks in front&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3767],"tags":[7,670,247,3803,248,6,671,191,3027,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-552594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn-nets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-nets","11":"tag-brooklynnets","12":"tag-jordi-fernandez","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-nets","15":"tag-new-york-knicks","16":"tag-ny-sports-minute","17":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115937272513837741","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552594","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=552594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}