Nine losses in 11 games. That’s where the Knicks were in January before the lowly Brooklyn Nets showed up on the schedule.

What ensued was a 120-66 win on Jan. 21, a 54-point beatdown that snapped a four-game losing streak and launched eight straight wins. The skid was over in one night.

Nine-and-a-half months later, a 2-4 start to the reigning champs’ title defense season feels a lot like 2-9 coming out of the NBA Cup championship. It’s not a start anybody at Madison Square Garden expected.

Yet here are the Nets, losers in each of their first five games of the Julius Randle-Michael Porter Jr. era. And here the Knicks are — in desperate need of a win with zero room to fumble a game against their cross-bridge rival.

Plus an ice-cold shooting stretch long overdue of a red-hot night.

The Knicks are angling for yet another beatdown of the team they’ve beaten eight times in a row. Here are six things to know before Nets at Knicks, 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Garden on Monday.

STILL WAITING ON ALVARADO

Knicks guard Jose Alvarado participated at practice at the team’s Tarrytown training facility on Sunday, but head coach Mike Brown did not give a clear answer regarding the backup guard’s availability for Monday.

“I have not talked to our medical people,” Brown said.

Alvarado has missed the Knicks’ last four games with a left ankle sprain. The Knicks acquired him at last year’s trade deadline as part of the expanded Guerschon Yabusele trade with the Chicago Bulls. They then re-signed him to a three-year, $14.4 million deal in free agency over the summer after he averaged five points and 2.5 assists on 50% 3-point shooting post-trade during the regular season and 4.2 points on 35% 3-point shooting during the title run.

Alvarado, 28, had nine points, three assists, three rebounds and two steals in 16 minutes in the season-opening loss to the Philadelphia 76ers and two points, two rebounds, two assists and a steal in 11 minutes against the Boston Celtics, the last game he played prior to his injury.

Karl-Anthony Towns played through a left wrist sprain in Philadelphia and wore a brace after the game. Towns declined to get into specifics when asked how his hand feels after practice on Sunday.

“The wrist is doing its thing,” he said.

Brooklyn is without Egor Demin, who has a right leg bone bruise, with a project for him to return in the second week of November. Mikel Brown Jr., the Nets’ rookie guard, sat out Sunday’s game in Indiana for rest.

TWO MEN, MOST OF THE SHOTS

Julius Randle and Michael Porter Jr. are the Nets’ offense. Randle is averaging 21.0 points and Porter 20.8. Together they have scored 209 of Brooklyn’s 551 points, or 37.9%, and have taken 152 of the team’s 438 shots, 34.7%.

Randle opened with 33 points against Charlotte, then scored 23, 10, 24 and 15 over the life of Brooklyn’s five-game losing streak. Porter has hit 17 threes and scored 26, 28 and 27 in three of the five games. The Knicks have had difficulty defending the 3-point line.

A MOODY EXIT

Randle got to Brooklyn this summer in a three-team trade with Minnesota and Chicago that sent Nic Claxton to the Bulls. The Wolves then landed LaMelo Ball. Timberwolves coach Chris Finch didn’t name anyone when he described the change at the Garden on Oct. 12, but all signs pointed to the vibe-shift in Minnesota stemming from removing Randle from the Timberwolves locker room.

“We referred to ourselves as a moody team in the last couple of years at times, and it’s probably gotten in our way,” Finch said in the preseason. “We’ve traded moodiness for giddiness.”

BRIDGES VS. HIS OLD TEAM

The Knicks are 8-0 against Brooklyn since acquiring Bridges in 2024. In seven of those games he played real minutes and averaged 15.0 points on 41-of-83 shooting, 49.4%, and 17-of-38 from three, 44.7%. He scored 22 and 21 in the first two meetings, in November 2024. The eighth was a six-second cameo in April 2025. He still has a soft spot.

“No matter them or Phoenix, people I played for, there’s always a spot in my heart for them and I always remember the time being there,” Bridges said Sunday.

He counted two holdovers, Day’Ron Sharpe and Noah Clowney.

“It might be just them two,” he said.

THE PRACTICE DAY

The Knicks got a rare full practice Sunday after three games in four days. Mike Brown called it valuable, a chance to work through what he called the team’s growing pains.

“When you have an opportunity to practice, you hope that you can address some of the things that bothered you and get a little bit better,” he said.

Bridges described a film-and-fix day.

“Just lock in,” Bridges said. “Obviously, we watch film and work on things that we gotta fix.”

Towns said the session was about finding ways to do better and help his teammates more.

WHO COULD STING THE KNICKS

Opposing benches have hurt the Knicks. Anfernee Simons scored 21 off the 76ers’ bench Friday on 7-of-11 shooting, including 5-of-8 from three. Orlando’s Tristan da Silva had 19 on 5-of-9 from three on Oct. 25, and Anthony Black added 18 on 5-of-7 shooting from deep. That’s 15 bench threes from three players in two losses, though Brown said after the loss in Philadelphia opposing benches aren’t at the top of the list of worries.

“I’m OK with that because sometimes guys are going to get hot and make shots. Now, are there little things we can do to correct it? Yes,” he said. “But what I was concerned with is our first half inability to control the dribble-drive, OK, and then how bad our turnovers were. Those were the two biggest things that I had concern with.”

Brooklyn’s reserves can score. Moritz Wagner has come off the bench in all five games and is averaging 11.4 points, including 16 on 7-of-10 shooting Friday against Detroit and 15 in Boston. Mikel Brown Jr., the No. 6 pick, is averaging 10.3 points in four games off the bench and scored 17 with four threes in Boston. Nolan Traore had 17 off the bench against Indiana. Josh Minott hit three 3s for 15 points in that game, and Danny Wolf went 3-of-4 from deep Friday.

Then there’s Randle, who spent five seasons with the Knicks before the 2024 trade that brought Towns to New York. He knows the building, and he has a chip on his shoulder, playing the same team that traded him for the first time since they won a chip without him.

The ex-Knick averaged 22.3 points, 5.8 rebounds and four assists on 50% shooting from the field and 35% shooting from 3-point range in the four games he played since the trade. Randle also turned the ball an average of 3.8 times per game in those matchups.