How Concerned Should the Sixers Be After Blowout Game 1 Loss vs. Knicks?

Well… that sucked.

Forty-eight hours after one of the most satisfying victories in recent franchise history, the Sixers headed right back out on the road to face the New York Knicks in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals at Madison Square Garden. It was a rowdy environment from the opening tip, and the Knicks only sent the Garden crowd into more of a frenzy as their lead continued to balloon.

Head coach Nick Nurse waved the white flag midway through the third quarter and pulled his starters other than VJ Edgecombe for the night. He told reporters after the game that he thought they had good energy at first, but he was worried that fatigue from Game 7 against the Boston Celtics on Saturday could be an issue.

Paul George had a more succinct summation of what went wrong for the Sixers in Game 1.

Paul George: "Yeah, we had breakdowns tonight. But they also shot the shit out of the ball."
— Derek Bodner (@DerekBodnerNBA) May 5, 2026

Nurse said afterward that it didn't matter how much the Sixers lost by (39 points); the only thing that matters is that they're now down 1-0 in the series. They'll have to play much better on Wednesday to avoid falling into a 2-0 hole that would be difficult to surmount.

The Sixers did lose by 32 to the Celtics in Game 1 of their first-round series, only to come back and beat them in seven games. They won Game 2, dropped Games 3 and 4 at home, and then became only the 14th team in NBA history—and the first team ever to do it against the Celtics—to overcome a 3-1 series deficit.

Asking them to do that twice would be a tall task. But if they don't win Game 2, they'll have to win Games 3 and 4 at home to avoid at least a 3-1 deficit (if not a clean sweep).

Let's go through both the optimistic and pessimistic outlooks for the Sixers after they got annihilated in Game 1.

Why the Sixers should be concerned

The Sixers appear to be testing whether losing Game 1 by 30-plus points but still going on to win the series is a sustainable strategy.

The two losses shared some characteristics. Much like the Boston Celtics in Game 1 of the first round, the Knicks shot the leather off the ball on Monday, while the Sixers couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. In fact, the Knicks were even more efficient from three-point range (19-of-37) than the Celtics (16-of-44) in the respective Game 1s.

But in Game 1 against the Celtics, the Sixers did not have Joel Embiid.

At the time, we didn't know when (or if) Embiid would return from his appendectomy. He missed the first three games of the Celtics series, returned in Game 4 and then helped rally the Sixers to three straight victories after they fell into a 3-1 series hole.

The Sixers do not have Embiid's looming return coming in to save the day against the Knicks. He played in Game 1, and the Knicks took full advantage of his limited mobility.

The bigger concern is Jalen Brunson. He scored 35 points on 12-of-18 shooting in only 31 minutes. Had the game been even remotely competitive in the second half, he might have flirted with a 50-piece.

Brunson lit the Sixers up for 40 points in each of the final three games of their last playoff series in 2024, although he was far more inefficient. He carved up everything they threw at him Monday.

Sixers are going to have to figure out their adjustment to Jalen Brunson attacking in P&R. Just completely in rhythm.

-High P&R you see Embiid is up to show, Brunson just rejects and finishes
-Sixers go back to Embiid in a drop, Brunson sees the space and pulls up pic.twitter.com/sdAFtqeqtS
— Steve Jones (@stevejones20) May 5, 2026

Nurse sounded less than thrilled with the Sixers' defense after the game, for obvious reasons. They figure to be far more dialed in at the start of Game 2—there's nothing like a 39-point blowout to serve as a wake-up call—but they stand little chance in this series if they can't make Brunson work harder on both ends of the ball.

It's not like this was an outlier performance for the Knicks, either. They thrashed the Hawks in each of the final three games of their first-round series, including a 51-point beatdown in the series clincher.

The Knicks' offense is humming right now. It's on the Sixers to stop it. And with only one day between games, they don't have much time to figure out a solution.

Why the Sixers can bounce back

The Sixers lost two of their first four games against the Celtics by 32 points and managed to win the series regardless. The good news for them is that point differential does not matter in the playoffs; a one-point win counts the exact same as a 39-point loss.

One positive from Game 1 is that Paul George continues to be locked in offensively. He scored a team-high 17 points and shot 4-of-6 from deep after shooting a blistering 55% from three-point range against the Celtics. Given the Sixers' dearth of reliable shooters, the Sixers need him to continue pacing them from three-point range.

Tyrese Maxey figures to be far more aggressive from the jump in Game 2 as well. He finished with only nine field-goal attempts in 27 minutes and didn't hit a single three-pointer for the first time all playoffs.

After finishing 1-of-4 from deep in the Sixers' blowout loss to the Celtics in Game 1, Maxey came out firing in Game 2 and went 5-of-12 from distance. He went back into attack mode in Games 5-7 against Boston after attempting only three shots in the first half of their Game 4 loss, too.

Much like the Celtics did, it appears as though the Knicks are content with sending extra help at Maxey and Embiid while daring Edgecombe and Kelly Oubre Jr. to beat them from deep. The Sixers need to find the right balance of not turning down wide-open shots but also not taking the Knicks' bait on every possession.

In Game 2, they figure to be far more intentional about hunting Brunson on defense. That won't solve everything for them offensively, but tiring him out on that end of the court should only have positive downstream effects when they're on defense.

Given how well the Knicks have been playing in recent games, the Sixers are facing an uphill battle to get back into this series. But after getting annihilated in Game 1 against the Celtics, the Sixers bounced back with a resounding Game 2 win that temporarily gave them home-court advantage in the series.

Is another 30-10 masterpiece from Edgecombe coming in Game 2? Will Maxey be looking to get himself going from the jump? Will Embiid find his shooting touch again? Any of those would give the Sixers a pathway to an upset.

While the game got away from the Sixers toward the end of the second quarter, they were hanging tough for most of the first half. A few necessary adjustments (particularly on defense) could get them right back in this series. And you know Nurse is in the lab right now cooking up something absolutely diabolical for Wednesday.

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Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM.

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