{"id":424647,"date":"2026-01-20T03:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/424647\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T03:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:47:08","slug":"fans-give-knicks-earful-as-struggles-continue-vs-mavericks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/424647\/","title":{"rendered":"Fans give Knicks earful as struggles continue vs. Mavericks"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK — As boos rained down while his team walked off the court after trailing the Dallas Mavericks<\/a> by 30 points, Knicks<\/a> coach Mike Brown decided it would be a waste of time to talk X’s and O’s in the locker room.<\/p>\n

“There was nothing to be said at halftime except for lock in and do your … do your job,” Brown said Monday, catching himself when he started to use an expletive during his news conference.<\/p>\n

His message might’ve been hard to hear, anyway, above the fans at Madison Square Garden who were loudly showing how fed up they are with a team that is losing control of a season that had championship aspirations.<\/p>\n

The Knicks have gone from NBA Cup champions to not even being able to rule out the play-in tournament thanks to a January freefall that saw them lose for the ninth time in 11 games with their 114-97 defeat<\/a> to the Mavericks.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n

2 Related<\/p>\n

As for what has gone wrong since the Knicks raised the Cup last month in Las Vegas?<\/p>\n

“There’s been a lot of things to pinpoint, but I mean as a team we know what we have to do,” captain Jalen Brunson<\/a> said. “It’s either we do it, we care enough to do it, or we don’t.”<\/p>\n

Brunson was announced as an All-Star starter earlier Monday, then he and fellow starter Josh Hart<\/a> were cleared to return from injuries. It had the makings of a celebratory day inside Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n

Instead, the Knicks were behind 16-4 minutes into the game and 75-45 just before halftime. It marked only the sixth time the Knicks have given up 75 points in an opening half at MSG.<\/p>\n

“I haven’t seen this kind of effort that we had today. It was embarrassing,” Hart said.<\/p>\n

Brown read off the stats that showed just how embarrassing: 27 fast-break points for the Mavericks in the first half and 28 in the paint — against an injury-depleted opponent without a true post-up player, he noted.<\/p>\n

Brown inherited a talented and veteran roster when the Knicks surprisingly fired Tom Thibodeau despite reaching the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in 25 years. Brown had the Knicks off to a 23-9 start, but they are now 25-18.<\/p>\n

Brunson was asked how the team begins a soul-searching process.<\/p>\n

“It should’ve started a couple weeks ago, but we’ve got to start tomorrow,” he said.<\/p>\n

Brunson was seen during the game televised nationally on NBC trying to urge on his teammates during a second-quarter timeout, but he wouldn’t say afterward what his message was. Nor could he or Brown explain the no-show in the first half.<\/p>\n

The boos largely stopped in the second half, though they returned in the fourth quarter when Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a> was subbed out of the game. Towns said he understood the frustration on a day the Knicks not only didn’t win but didn’t “really have a chance.”<\/p>\n

“Fans are doing their part and we’ve got to do our part,” Towns said.<\/p>\n

The Mavericks, meanwhile, welcomed back star rookie Cooper Flagg<\/a>. He had 18 points in his first pro game at Madison Square Garden after sitting out Dallas’ previous two games, both victories over the Utah Jazz<\/a>, because of a sprained left ankle. The No. 1 pick also had seven rebounds.<\/p>\n

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK — As boos rained down while his team walked off the court after trailing the Dallas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-424647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}