Ben Krimmel Wed, October 21, 2026 at 2:10 AM UTC · 6 min read About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Knicks raised a championship banner for the first time in over half a century at Madison Square Garden, but the Philadelphia 76ers spoiled the party, handing New York a 106-100 loss on Tuesday night to open the 2026-27 NBA season.
Jalen Brunson led the Knicks with 21 points (6-for-19 shooting), five rebounds, and three assists, but was a minus-11 in 34 minutes as he and the rest of the defending champs were stifled on the night they got their rings by some very good Philadelphia defense, including from the new Sixers stars of Jaylen Brown and LeBron James .
New York has returned nearly all of their championship core and got a big contribution from the lone key offseason acquisition to Mike Brown 's rotation, but lacked the championship sharpness that was a hallmark of their drought-breaking run to a title.
After seeing a 10-point lead slip in the third, if the switch was going to flip in the fourth quarter, it was going to have to come after OG Anunoby bounced in a corner three. Jose Alvarado poked the ball away from Tyrese Maxey for his second steal of the night and hustled down the court to knock in his second three and force a Sixers timeout with eight minutes to play and the lead down to two.
The deficit was four when Brunson checked back in with just over five to play in the game. Soon after, Brunson found Karl-Anthony Towns for a deep three and had a chance for the lead the next possession, but a contested fadeaway was off, and Joel Embiid answered with a three. Back down by five, Brunson and Towns again combined for a from deep, but Philly again answered with a pair of dunks, and Brown called for time with two minutes left and the deficit at six.
The Knicks cut the game to four and got a stop, but a Brunson three with 10 seconds to play was way off, and that was all the Knicks had left.
- Towns blocked a noticeably slimmer Embiid early, but threw the ball away as Maxey capitalized for his second three in the game's early going. Towns would pick his first foul inside three minutes and 18 seconds later got his second with an offensive foul as he extended his leg on his jumper and tripped Maxey to send him to the bench.
Andre Drummond , who spent the last two years in Philly, entered for his first action as the Mitchell Robinson replacement. And the veteran took full advantage of the opportunity with six points and six rebounds (three offensive), adding an assist, a steal, and a block in nine minutes in the opening quarter. He made it a double-double debut inside his first 12 minutes on the floor as KAT continued to sit and was a huge bright spot.
Towns made a three-minute cameo in the second, scoring five points before he picked up his third and returned to the bench. He was a minus-3 in six first-half minutes.
Towns, who turned it around in the second half, finished with 19 points (6-for-9 shooting), 12 rebounds (three offensive), two blocks, and was even in 23 minutes. Drummond finished with 12 points (5-for-13) with 14 rebounds (seven offensive) and four assists, two blocks, and a steal, but was a minus-6 in 24 minutes.
- Starters started slowly. Josh Hart , who had a great year shooting the three last years despite his finger trouble, missed his first two from the outside and Anunoby missed his first five from deep as New York opened the game 2-for-10 from three, but were down by just one late in the first. Brunson's late floater gave the Knicks a 25-23 lead after 12 minutes, as he had just five points in the opening stanza. The defending champs shot just 37 percent (10-for-27) from the floor in the quarter.
The Knicks starter did not start the third crisply, going 1-for-7 from the floor and committing three turnovers, as Brown used a pair of timeouts in four minutes as the lead was cut to one. After two more Knicks misses, the Sixers had a lead, since late in the first quarter, before a Hart three, to give him 10 on the night, stopped the bleeding.
But New York shot 23.8 percent (5-for-21) and allowed the Sixers to close the quarter on an 11-0 run to grab a seven-point lead entering the fourth, which was made possible by a fifth turnover of the period.
Hart added 14 points (5-for-10 shooting) with seven rebounds and three assists and was a plus-1 in 30 minutes. It was not Anunoby's night: 10 points (3-for-12, 1-for-9 from deep) with five rebounds and was a team-worst minus-20 in 32 minutes.
- Brunson had a relatively quiet half until he had a Brunsonian spurt late in the second with two at the line, taking a charge, hitting a floater, and then adding three more at the line. At the half, Brunson led the Knicks with 15 points (4-for-9 shooting) with two rebounds and two turnovers and was a minus-1 in 17 minutes, but the Knicks' lead was down to four.
- The Knicks' second unit really started to twist the screws on the visitors as players off the bench, led by Drummond, had 23 of the Knicks' first 38 points as New York built a 10-point lead four minutes into the second.
The bench contributed just nine more points the rest of the game, with Alvarado adding eight, Landry Shamet five, Jordan Clarkson four, and Miles McBride three. The reserves were a combined 13-for-36 (36.1 percent) from the floor on the night, weighed down by going 3-for-13 (23.1 percent) after the half.
On his Sixers' debut, the former Finals MVP had 19 points (7-for-14) with eight rebounds, six assists, and was a plus-17 in 35 minutes, including 10 points and five assists in Philly's big third quarter.
The Knicks are back in action for the second game of the 82-game slate Friday night to take on the Celtics for a 7 p.m. tip-off in Boston.
Source: Sports
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