Knicks’ Jalen Brunson underscores need for ‘new year’ mentality after latest Pistons beatdown

NEW YORK – The New York Knicks have a complicated relationship with the Detroit Pistons. The young Pistons group completing their 2026 regular season sweep of the Knicks on Thursday night puts the two teams back in a similar set of circumstances to those of last season, which culminated in a first-round playoff victory for New York. Team captain Jalen Brunson doesn’t want to lean on last year’s results anymore, though.

“It’s a new year,” Brunson told reporters at Madison Square Garden following the Knicks’ 126-111 defeat.

The young Detroit group, led by a jumbo playmaker and comprised mostly of gritty specialists in defined roles, is reminiscent of the New York squads led by Julius Randle. But, to borrow a dichotomy Jay-Z once laid out in an early-2010s rap masterpiece, Brunson has helped these Knicks transition in recent years from “underpaid” to “overrated.”

New York is supposed to be closer than ever to a championship. But Cade Cunningham’s Pistons are the lovable underdog that upsets NBA hierarchies with surprise road wins. And on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden, the Knicks were the contenders caught coasting.

The Pistons were missing centers Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart, with both suspended after the fight with the Charlotte Hornets. It didn’t matter much to Cunningham. His 42-point, eight-rebound, 13-assist performance outmatched the 33 points, six rebounds, and eight assists Brunson delivered on 60% field goal shooting.

Detroit’s regular season success didn’t help them against the Knicks in last year’s playoffs. But these Pistons seem to be working with bigger cylinders. The proverbial engine of their offense, Cunningham, has leveled up. This allows him to elevate his teammates to even greater heights.

The Knicks have work to do before the end of the season if they want to replicate last year’s playoff results against teams like the Pistons. They’ve reached the necessary heights several times, but too often seem to regress after reminding themselves they can do it.

Bridges finishes another close game on the Knicks’ bench

Thursday’s loss to the Pistons marked another close game that Mikal Bridges watched from the bench. The Knicks made just eight of their 35 attempts from behind the 3-point arc, with only four different players getting shots to fall. Brunson and Landry Shamet were the only two Knicks to make more than one, each knocking in three over the course of the 15-point loss.

Two of those 3-point makes by Shamet came in the last eight minutes of the fourth quarter, when he was on the court in place of starter Mikal Bridges. It’s important to the Knicks’ scheme versatility that starters like Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns are fine with sitting on the bench in favor of red-hot role players. But head coach Mike Brown said that Shamet closed over Bridges because the team needed to score. That wasn’t a ringing endorsement of the two-way wing that just signed a four-year, $150 million extension with a player option for the 2029-30 season.

“Landry had hit a couple shots. We needed to score. They’re both really good defenders. And so I just stayed with Landry. But it wasn’t anything where, ‘Oh, I’m going to sit Mikal because he’s not doing this, or he’s not doing that.’ We were looking to score points. And Landry was the only one to make a shot from behind the arc,” the coach said through some arguably nervous laughter.

A key part of the Knicks’ journey to contention this upcoming postseason will be finding balance with regard to the involvement of their star players – and what they bring to the table in games where shots aren’t being funneled their way. While Brown made clear that Bridges wasn’t at fault for what was not a late-game benching, but rather a situational adjustment, it’s on Bridges going forward to not give the coaching staff a choice.

Bridges didn’t ask to be traded for five first-round picks. He didn’t force the Knicks to offer him $150 million and a player option. But the ball is in the 29-year-old’s court with regard to how he chooses to respond to this adversity. His postgame confessional in Toronto was a fantastic start. New York cannot afford for it to be an outlier.

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