BOSTON \u2014 A loss to the Celtics reinforced the obvious: if Jalen Brunson is this bad, the Knicks don\u2019t have much of a chance.<\/p>\n
The star point guard completed his worst game of the season in Tuesday\u2019s 123-117 defeat to the Celtics, missing 15 of his 21 attempts with three turnovers as the Knicks\u2019 road woes continued.<\/p>\n
The defeat snapped a four-game winning streak for the Knicks (13-7), who fell to 3-6 away from MSG.<\/p>\n
Brunson was uncharacteristically off.<\/p>\n
Jordan Walsh of the Boston Celtics guards Jalen Brunson of the New York Knicks in the first quarter of a game at TD Garden on December 2, 2025 in Boston, Massachusetts. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Way off.<\/p>\n
He went 1-for-8 from beyond the arc, including an open trey with just over five minutes left that barely touched the rim. Most of his jumpers were short.<\/p>\n
Still, the Knicks battled back from big deficits \u2014 including 18 early in the fourth quarter \u2014 to cut it to 3. Flashbacks of the playoff miracle Knicks comebacks at TD Garden probably infiltrated minds in the stands and on the court.<\/p>\n
But Brunson couldn\u2019t hit a shot and he flubbed two floaters in the final two minutes. It might\u2019ve been his worst game in a Knicks uniform, not just of the season. Mikal Bridges, who dropped 35 points on 12-of-17 shooting (including 8-for-12 on 3s), did his best to drag the Knicks to a win.<\/p>\n
But Brunson\u2019s dud was too much to overcome.<\/p>\n
For the first seven minutes, the Knicks were stellar. Josh Hart was burying 3-pointers at an outrageous clip, dropping 11 points in the opening quarter. Karl-Anthony Towns was a force. Miles McBride was knocking down treys.<\/p>\n
The Knicks started with a 17-4 run after tipoff.<\/p>\n
But it deteriorated by halftime, largely because they had no answer for Jaylen Brown. The Celtics star dropped 18 of his 42 points in the second quarter, feasting on a leaky New York defense as the Knicks reserves \u2014 namely backup point guard Tyler Kolek \u2014 couldn\u2019t keep up.<\/p>\n
Kolek was on the floor for only 15 minutes and the Knicks were outscored by 23 points. Mitchell Robinson\u2019s playing time was also a big negative for the Knicks and included the season\u2019s first deployment of Hack-A-Mitch.<\/p>\n
Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla sent Robinson to the foul line twice on purpose in the first quarter, with the center going 1-for-4 from the stripe. Hardly a deterrent.<\/p>\n
Karl-Anthony Towns of the New York Knicks speaks with referee Marat Kogut in the first quarter of a game against the Boston Celtics at TD Garden on December 2, 2025 in Boston, Massachusetts. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, no Knicks player was as bad as Brunson.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat\u2019s happening on and off the Garden court\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Knicks by Stefan Bondy, a weekly exclusive on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
His team returned to the scene of their high point last season, the TD Garden that hosted their improbable comebacks in Games 1 and 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.<\/p>\n
For the players \u2014 and Bridges, in particular \u2014 it was a validating experience after the regular-season results prompted concerns that the Knicks weren\u2019t legitimate.<\/p>\n
Knicks guard Mikal Bridges (25) attempts a basket against the Boston Celtics during the first half at the TD Garden. Brian Fluharty-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was fun to see our team through all the adversity and everything being said about us and the series to come out here and play good basketball and give ourselves a chance to win,\u201d Towns recalled before Tuesday\u2019s tipoff. \u201cWe didn\u2019t do it early on in every game. But we came out with a win. I remember our whole team being special when it needed to be special.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe play for the New York Knicks. There\u2019s adversity every day. So just going out there trying to win against a team that obviously has a championship under their belt and been together for a long time. For us, it\u2019s staying on the task at hand and doing everything we can to win the series.<\/p>\n
It was also a reminder that the regular-season results are often inconsequential in the playoffs. The Knicks were smacked four times by the Celtics last season, including a blowout in the opener at TD Garden. One Knicks player, speaking from the locker room Tuesday, remembered it as \u201cbelt to ass.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet the Knicks still triumphed when it mattered most in the playoffs. So they can at least take salvation in that after Tuesday\u2019s loss.<\/p>\n
Because Brunson playing this poorly doesn\u2019t happen very often.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON \u2014 A loss to the Celtics reinforced the obvious: if Jalen Brunson is this bad, the Knicks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9127,4777,14063,21,9,11,1104,10,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-59323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-boston-celtics","9":"tag-jalen-brunson","10":"tag-mikal-bridges","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-knicks","15":"tag-new-york-news","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}