Knicks Climb Back To Winning Ways Starts With Longtime Punching Bag

It took only six games for some Knicks fans to stir over a sloppy 2-4 start. Times like this are when it's important to keep perspective. These are mostly the same guys who just climbed Everest for us and it’s hard to sprint after a marathon.

"It’s like climbing a mountain. We’re climbing a mountain as a team and we conquer the mountain, then you got to come back down, take some time off, then you got to climb another mountain. It’s the same thing,” coach Mike Brown told Jared Schwartz of the NY Post over the weekend. "And when you climb that mountain the second time, you’re starting from base camp again. And if you skip steps doing that, you’re going to die. It’s not that tragic for us. When you’re sitting at 2-4, people equate it to that sometimes, but it’s the same thing, taking each step the right way and embracing it and trying to get a little better."

The next step is a home game against the woebegone Brooklyn Nets, who are coming off their first victory of the season after beating a banged-up Pacers team 98-90 last night. Even with the game being on the second night of a back-to-back, it’s safe to bet that Julius Randle and company will treat the battle of the boroughs like their Super Bowl.

Brooklyn has long been just what doctor ordered for the Knicks

It’s also safe to say this will be a prototypical get-well game where the Knicks show that they’re the reigning champions for a reason. Since Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving bolted town, New York has made the Nets their personal punching bag with 13 straight wins by a margin of 16 points per game. Seeing Brooklyn on the schedule has been the Knicks' best medicine for years now.

In the early goings of the season, the Knicks haven't showed up in the first half of games and continue to think they're the comeback kids who can turn it on in the final minutes of games. The turnovers have been so uncharacteristic of this group and the ball isn't hopping around.

According to James Edwards of the Athletic, the Knicks are averaging 9.2 shots per game with seven-to-four seconds left on the shot clock, which was the fifth-highest in the league as of Saturday morning. They are shooting a 29th-ranked 28.3 percent on those attempts.

“We have too many guys trying to iso, and the other four guys are sitting there staring at the ball for a whole possession, and we're burping up bad shots” 👀

Mike Brown not happy with the sticky ball and the turnovers vs the Sixers pic.twitter.com/5FJIODIt2A
— Knicks Fan TV 🏀🎥📺🏁 (@KnicksFanTv) October 31, 2026

“We have too many guys trying to iso, and the other four guys are sitting there staring at the ball for a whole possession, and we're burping up bad shots,” Brown said after the 98-93 loss in Philadelphia.

A disappointing few games in October set the stage for a potentially win-fattening November. The Knicks play the 28th-hardest schedule in the league and have only two back-to-back sets, but all four of those games are at Madison Square Garden.

Starting with Brooklyn, the Knicks play 11 games from now until Thanksgiving Eve. That includes home games with Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Portland and Indiana, who will be without Tyrese Haliburton. Then there are road games in Cleveland, Indiana, Minnesota (without Anthony Edwards) and consecutive meetings north of the border against a Kawhi Leonard-less Raptors team.

If the Knicks take care of business in the weeks ahead, this early season hiccup wouldn't even be a footnote. And what better way to kick things off than against the lowly Nets.

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