{"id":943702,"date":"2026-10-28T07:42:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T07:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/943702\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T07:42:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T07:42:22","slug":"reigning-champ-knicks-earn-first-win-against-pistons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/943702\/","title":{"rendered":"Reigning champ Knicks earn first win against Pistons"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n The NBA reigning champion New York Knicks finally got their first win of the season, beating the Detroit Pistons 111-97 Tuesday with 27 points from Karl-Anthony Towns and 23 from Jalen Brunson.<\/p>\n

The Knicks, who broke a five-decade title drought in June but had lost their three opening games this season, overcame another slow start at Madison Square Garden to pull clear in the second half.<\/p>\n

They avoided the ignominy of being the first reigning champions since 1969 to start the following season 0-4.<\/p>\n

“We got to remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day. This is a new year, new team,” said last season’s NBA Finals MVP Brunson, who added seven assists.<\/p>\n

“Adversity started early, so we just got to fight back.”<\/p>\n

The Pistons — who had won their first three games of the season — started fast, going 13 points clear at the beginning of the second quarter thanks to free-scoring Paul Reed and Cade Cunningham.<\/p>\n

Brunson struggled early, shooting just 1-for 9 in the first half.<\/p>\n

But the Knicks pulled together for a remarkable rally, edging a single-point lead at halftime and roaring 25 points clear by the end of the third quarter.<\/p>\n

They restricted the Pistons to a combined 25 points across the entire second and third quarters.<\/p>\n

“I think we were just able to get stops, run a little bit, create a good enough lead, knowing that they were going to have a run in them to fight back,” said Brunson.<\/p>\n

With a home game against Charlotte looming Wednesday, and his team 21 points down, Detroit coach J.B. Bickerstaff emptied the bench with seven-and-a-half minutes remaining.<\/p>\n

The Knicks’ starters remained on court, and top-scorer Towns finished the night with 20 rebounds.<\/p>\n

The Pistons, who finished with the best regular-season record in the NBA Eastern Conference last year, are now 3-1. Reed top-scored with 22, while Cunningham had 19 points, eight assists and nine rebounds.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Victor Wembanyama helped the San Antonio Spurs to a 130-103 win over the Sacramento Kings with 29 points, 10 rebounds, five blocks and two steals.<\/p>\n

The Spurs, who lost to the Knicks in last season’s finals, had endured their own slow start to this campaign with two opening losses, but moved to 2-2.<\/p>\n

San Antonio were rampant in a first half they led 80-54, with Wembanyama pouring in 23 points before the interval, and their lead barely dipped in a comfortable second half.<\/p>\n

Julian Champagnie scored 26 points. The Kings sank to 0-4.<\/p>\n

With Boston trailing by a single point at the very end of overtime, Jayson Tatum sank a game-winning buzzer-beater to ensure the Celtics won a thriller 125-124 against the winless Brooklyn Nets.<\/p>\n

A tense game in which neither team ever opened a double-digit lead had ended 117-117 after regular time.<\/p>\n

Tatum scored 40 points plus eight assists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA reigning champion New York Knicks finally got their first win of the season, beating the Detroit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":943703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-943702","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\/943702","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=943702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}