Knicks stunned by undermanned Magic, go cold from deep in third straight loss
Knicks guard Jalen Brunson looks to pass the ball defended by Orlando Magic guard Anthony Black in the first half of an NBA basketball game at Madison Square Garden on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
It is a warning that Tom Thibodeau preaches nearly every night, but especially when the opposition is shorthanded or floundering near the bottom of the standings. You can’t overlook anyone, because to get here, every player is great.
Before Monday night’s game, you might have been hard-pressed to convince anyone of that. The Magic arrived at Madison Square Garden with a squad missing five key players, including three of their top four scorers.
The Knicks had their own injury issues with Karl-Anthony Towns and Deuce McBride ruled out before the game, but they still came in with four of their starters intact.
But as the game wore on, the Knicks found themselves looking up at the scoreboard as incredulously as the 19,812 in attendance. They produced one of their worst performances of the season, dropping a 103-94 decision to the Magic.
It was the third straight defeat for the Knicks (24-13), their longest losing streak of the season. They also scored their fewest points of the season.
They could point to the absence of Towns, who sat with what the team called right knee patellar tendinopathy. It was a huge loss, to be sure, and the Knicks have lost two of the three games he has missed this season. They should have had enough to beat the Magic anyway but didn’t match their effort and efficiency.
“I don’t want to say a lack of effort because I think guys were trying,” Thibodeau said. “But we played low energy and we couldn’t get anything going and so we have to get our energy back, and that’s a big part of this league. Things change quickly, and so we’ve got to make it go our way. Sometimes you’ve just got to dig down and find a way to win the game, and we fell short in that area today.”
“At the end of the day, we’ve got to figure out what kind of team we’re going to be,” Josh Hart said. “Are we going to be a team that’s high energy and happy when you make shots? And low energy when we don’t? Or are we going to be a team that goes out there with energy every game? Games where we’re not making shots, we still have that energy and still have execution, that grind, where we’re able to get wins.
“It’s an 82-game season. We’re not going to have energy or make shots all the time. But we’ve got to make sure we find a way to win basketball games.”
Comeback efforts down the stretch never amounted to anything for the Knicks. Down by 10 midway through the fourth quarter, they seemed poised for a run, but the Magic answered every attempt by the Knicks to rally.
Only a last-second shot by Cam Payne allowed them to avoid matching an NBA low as the Magic defense forced the Knicks into 4-for-22 shooting from three-point range. After going 3-for-6, they missed 15 straight.
Asked about the lack of energy, Jalen Brunson said, “It’s unacceptable on our part. I don’t know why. Ball’s just not going in for us, but that shouldn’t be the reason why we’re not winning games. We got to find a way to impact the game in other areas when we’re not making shots like that. It starts with me.”
Brunson and Mikal Bridges led the Knicks with 24 points each, with Brunson fouling out with 1:05 remaining. Hart had 15 points and 14 rebounds. Jericho Sims, who got the start in place of Towns, had four points and 10 rebounds.
Facing the Knicks without Towns must have sounded like a dream to Magic coach Jamahl Mosley, who has been without much of his top-tier talent this season. On Monday, Orlando (22-16) was missing Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, Mo Wagner, Jalen Suggs and Gary Harris.
Even though the Magic were without four of their top players, it was the Knicks who looked to be lost without one key piece.
Against the Magic’s skeleton crew, they found themselves trailing 53-51 at the half, shooting abysmally (19-for-46 overall and 3-for-15 from beyond the arc) and being outworked and out-hustled by Orlando. Then they scored 17 points in the third quarter.
“It was a low-energy game,” Hart said. “We didn’t get stops how we’re supposed to. We didn’t run how we’re supposed to. We didn’t feed off our defense and make our job offensively easier. We just didn’t execute.
“At the end of the day, we’re out there for 48 minutes. We’ve got to find a way. If we’re tired, we’ll have days off after, but while we’re out there for 48, we’ve got to find a way to win.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
