The New York Knicks recorded arguably their most unimpressive win of this 2025-26 NBA season on Sunday, narrowly beating the severely undermanned Golden State Warriors 100-97 at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks were at risk of suffering what would have been an incredibly embarrassing loss for much of the night, and head coach Mike Brown called out his team in his postgame press conference.
“A veteran team that has won and experienced winning at a pretty high level, I shouldn’t have to call two timeouts in the first six minutes of the ball game,” Brown said, via SNY. “… And I’m not talking X’s and O’s.”
Slow starts have very much been a theme for the Knicks lately. They are averaging 24.7 points in the first quarter in March, which ranks 29th in the NBA. The Knicks are only just ahead of the lowly Brooklyn Nets, who are putting up 24.3 points. They are the only teams averaging under 25 points in the period in the month.
The Knicks started very slowly here, too, scoring just 21 points in the first quarter. Now that is bad enough, but they made matters worse by allowing the Warriors to score freely. The visitors had 35 points in the first on 61.1% shooting from the field.
Now, you can understand that the Warriors can blow teams away when Stephen Curry is rolling, but he and so many other big names weren’t playing here. Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, Kristaps Porzingis, De’Anthony Melton, Al Horford, Moses Moody, and Seth Curry were all out.
The Warriors had put out a starting lineup of Brandin Podziemski, Will Richard, Malevy Leons, Gui Santos, and Quinten Post against the Knicks. The hosts should have crushed them, but found themselves down by as many as 21 points in the second quarter.
The Knicks then finally pulled their socks up and took the lead late in the third quarter. The Warriors didn’t get disheartened and throw in the towel, though. They stayed within touching distance and even had a chance to send the game to overtime, but turned the ball over on their final possession to give the Knicks the win.
This result means the Knicks have now won three in a row, but Brown was not happy and revealed he didn’t give out the Defensive Player of the Game (DPOG) award to any of his players.
“It’s good to get a win,” Brown stated. “But I was not happy with the way that we started the game, and we played most of the game. We found a way to get a win. Because of the stuff we did in the game, I did not name a DPOG today. So there is no DPOG. We have to figure out individually, collectively, how we can start games better.”
You can get away with slow starts in the regular season against mediocre competition, but you’ll be in big trouble if you do this in the playoffs. Knicks superstar Jalen Brunson recognizes this is an issue they have to sort out, but they don’t have too much time.
The Knicks improved to 44-25 with this win and have 13 games left in this regular season. They take on the Indiana Pacers next at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. ET.
