The New York Knicks are in a slump. In December, the Mecca looked like one of the best teams in the league. They boasted a 9-4 record and showed their clutch gene by defeating the red-hot San Antonio Spurs to win the NBA Cup, New York’s first big title in decades. They followed that up with a huge 20-point comeback on Christmas Day against the Cavs. It seemed like this really could be their year.
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But 2026 has not been a good start for them. They lost to the Atlanta Hawks, then dropped 2 games to the 76ers that weren’t even close. They did have some excuses since KAT missed the Hawks game and Josh Hart has been out of action. That said, good teams find a way to win.
What made it even worse was their showdown against the Pistons. What should have been a battle for the top spot in the East turned into a Detroit butt-kicking. Pistons won by 31 points. New York looked like they had been hit by a hurricane. And their top stars know it. Jalen Brunson addressed the Knicks’ four-game losing streak on the latest edition of his Roomates Show podcast with Hart.
“Just keep it a buck, we a**. I’m going to keep it real. We look god awful,” stated December’s Eastern Conference Player of the month. When your top player sees that, it’s a hard pill to swallow. He’s been carrying the load as he always has, but the Knicks’ 2nd and 3rd options have been absent. Towns has been incredibly inconsistent. Bridges is only good in spurts, and OG looks like a shell of what he did last season.
“The worst about it, it’s all correctable stuff,” added Brunson. “It’s not like we’re…We’re not bad. It’s just all correctable stuff and I think that’s what makes it the most frustrating. We have the ability to correct it. It should have been corrected a long time ago but here we are, on a four-game losing streak.”
Jalen Brunson on the Knicks 4 game losing streak
“Just keep it a buck, we ass. We look god awful”
(Via @Roommates__Show) pic.twitter.com/4ED9hLYW5g
— NBA Courtside (@NBA__Courtside) January 8, 2026
The good thing is that if there is a time to slump, it’s now. The Knicks are still No. 3 in the East and will have plenty of time to adjust their faults during the All-Star break and going into the second half of the season. The bad news is that teams like Philly, Boston, and Detroit are going to be a challenge for them.
The media has not been kind to the Knicks either, but Brunson easily shuts them out. “I don’t care what the media says, really. I know that we are a lot better than what we’ve been showing. We’ve shown that already this year.”
“We started the season not as great as we could have, and we found a way to kind of use that to push us through November and December, and then win the Cup, and then we are kind of back at that point we were at the beginning of the season.”
Fortunately for the Knicks, they already seem to have fixed a few glaring issues. They secured a big win over the Clippers last night to end the slump and add another W for the Mecca fans at MSG. It wasn’t easy, though. Kawhi Leonard and James Harden were feasting on the Knicks’ defense before they cracked down in the 3rd quarter. Knicks went on to win 123-111. It should hopefully give the team some confidence.
Now the question is whether that Clippers win is a real turning point or just a temporary bandage. The talent is still there, the record is still solid, and the East is far from settled. Brunson has already said the quiet part out loud. This team knows it hasn’t been good enough. If they actually clean up the “correctable stuff” instead of just talking about it, this slump will be a footnote. If not, December will start to feel like a tease instead of a preview.
