{"id":864593,"date":"2026-10-22T01:36:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T01:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/864593\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T01:36:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T01:36:29","slug":"knicks-embracing-season-opening-loss-put-our-egos-in-check","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/864593\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks embracing season-opening loss: &#8216;Put our egos in check&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The champions were brought back down to earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They believe they will be better off for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s good for us to kind of get knocked down off the mountain,\u201d Jalen Brunson said after the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/10\/20\/sports\/knicks-banner-raising-effort-comes-up-short-in-opening-loss-to-76ers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Knicks\u2019 106-100 season-opening loss to the 76ers<\/a> on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden. \u201cHumble ourselves, put our egos in check and see what\u2019s going to happen. I\u2019ve told you guys since Day 1, whatever happens these first couple of weeks of the season, it\u2019s gonna show who we truly are. So let\u2019s see.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   data-modal-image=\"41451585\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2026-madison-square-garden-new-145910150.jpg\" alt=\"Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers and Jalen Brunson of the New York Knicks talk on the court after a game.\" class=\"wp-image-41451585\"\/>Joel Embiid (21) of the Philadelphia 76ers and Jalen Brunson (11) of the New York Knicks talk after a game at Madison Square Garden in New York, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>It only added to that dynamic that the 76ers \u2014 now with LeBron James and Jaylen Brown \u2014 have championship expectations and are considered one of the top threats to the Knicks\u2019 chances of repeating. If the Knicks are now the hunted, it was an immediate litmus test against one of the most dangerous hunters.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The pregame ceremony, when the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/10\/20\/sports\/knicks-championship-ring-includes-mini-garden-nearly-800-diamonds\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Knicks raised the banner and collected their rings<\/a>, was recognized by the players as the official end of the championship. They are no longer that team. They can\u2019t just assume they will pick up right where they left off.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat\u2019s happening on and off the Garden court\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 Knicks by Stefan Bondy, a weekly exclusive 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 they don\u2019t want to view themselves as champions. They\u2019re back to square one, just like the rest of the NBA.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t sit there and think we\u2019re the champions because we\u2019re not,\u201d Josh Hart said. \u201cWe\u2019re 0-1. We\u2019re the worst team in the NBA right now. So we need to play like it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They were far from their normal standards in terms of pace, ball movement and help defending. Identifying those problems could be more beneficial in the long term than a regular-season win.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to win, don\u2019t get me wrong,\u201d coach Mike Brown said. \u201cDon\u2019t get that twisted at all. I want to freaking win, but not at the expense of us skipping steps in the process.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A bit of a humbling was an important part of that process.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The champions were brought back down to earth.\u00a0 They believe they will be better off for it.\u00a0 \u201cI&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,288,304,3357,6,1136,191,3810,3806,207,66],"class_list":["post-864593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-knicks","tag-basketball","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-knicks","tag-mike-brown","tag-nba","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkknicks","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117482001767945614","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864593","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=864593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}