Mike Brown after the Knicks’ ring-night loss: ‘We looked like we were running in mud’

Mike Brown got the ring and the banner on Tuesday night. Then he watched his New York Knicks lose the first game of their title defense, 106-100 to the Philadelphia 76ers at Madison Square Garden, and he did not dress up what he saw. “What an ugly game,” the Knicks coach said to open his postgame news conference.

He gave the Sixers credit first. “I want to give the 76ers, Nick Nurse and his team a lot of credit,” Brown said. “Long night for them, but they came out and they tried to do what they needed to do to get a win.” Then he went through what went wrong for his own team, and most of it came back to one image.

“All throughout the game we looked like we were running in mud,” Brown said. “Whether it was in the front court or it was in transition, we were not good getting to our spots and putting pressure on Philadelphia the right way.”

"What an ugly game…give Sixers a lot of credit…It looked like we were running in mud…Not good getting to our spots, putting pressure…Sixers 17 fastbreak points 2d half…we had 15 turnovers for 22 points…Spacing wasn't great, we were walking everywhere––and when we did get to… pic.twitter.com/1jsDmM5LE0

— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) October 21, 2026

The third quarter and the starters

Brown put the loss on a specific stretch and a specific group. “Our transition defense was not good with our starting group in the third quarter,” he said. By the Knicks’ own count, Philadelphia had nine fast-break points in the first half and 19 in the second. “That’s where the game was won and lost, especially in the third quarter when our starting players were out there,” Brown said.

New York led 58-54 at halftime and was still up 76-72 with three minutes left in the third. The Sixers scored the last 11 points of the quarter, finished by back-to-back threes from Jaylen Brown, and never trailed again. Tyrese Maxey scored a game-high 28.

Brown said the Knicks had talked about taking care of the ball and did “a little bit better job,” but not enough. “In the one-two possession game when you have 15 turnovers for 22 points, it makes it tough,” he said.

Seven sprays, and the goal is 20

The mud showed up on offense too. “Part of us looking like we were running in mud is our spacing wasn’t great,” Brown said. “We were walking everywhere, which hurt our spacing. And then when we did get to the paint, we couldn’t finish.”

Brown’s system asks players to get into the paint and then either score with force or kick the ball out to a shooter, which the Knicks call a spray. “We had seven sprays tonight, seven for the game, and we would like to get to 20,” he said. His rule for the paint, which he repeated twice: “Hit the paint, play off two feet, finish strong, or spray it.”

New York shot 37 percent from the field and 11-of-33 from three. OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges, two of the players who depend most on that ball movement, went a combined 5-of-20, and 1-of-11 from deep. “It was a tough ballgame to watch for me,” Brown said. “I don’t know about you guys, but it was tough for me to watch, and we’ll be better.”

‘Playing with fire’

The Knicks still had chances late. Karl-Anthony Towns scored 10 of his 19 points in the fourth quarter and twice brought New York within two. Jalen Brunson, the reigning Finals MVP, shot 6-of-19 and 1-of-5 in the fourth. Brown was asked about those late misses, and said a win built on them would not have sat right with him.

“If Jalen Brunson hits those shots down the stretch and we win, for me personally as their coach, there’s going to be something inside of me that wished it wouldn’t happen,” Brown said. “It’s almost like you’re playing with fire and you ended up winning that time without any water or one of them fire blankets to cover the fire.” He added: “We put ourselves in a hole not doing the other little things, and sometimes it works at the end of the game, sometimes it doesn’t.”

Brunson took the same view. “I think it’s good for us to get knocked down off the mountain, humble ourselves, put our egos in check,” he said. “I’ve told you guys since day one, whatever happens the first couple of weeks of the season, I’m not sure that’s who we really are.”

Drummond ran out of gas

One rotation call Brown owned on the spot was Andre Drummond’s night. Towns picked up early fouls, so Drummond played longer than planned, and he finished with 14 rebounds, seven of them offensive. “I thought he played with a lot of bounce and energy in the first half on both ends of the floor,” Brown said. “We probably ran him too long, because it looked like in the second half, not just him, but especially our five starters, he looked like he ran out of a little bit of gas.”

Mike Brown said he probably played Andre Drummond longer than he should have. His playing time was extended because of KAT’s early foul trouble. pic.twitter.com/Gxx3bJjWDn

— Kristian Winfield (@Krisplashed) October 21, 2026

“I got to keep getting to know him to see where the minutes may lie for him to be effective,” Brown said. “But I thought he was really, really, really good in the first half.”

No excuses about the ceremony

Before the game, Brown had said he wanted his players to enjoy ring night “but not fully.” Asked afterward whether the emotion of the ceremony carried into the game, he would not use it. “I don’t know, but they had to kind of sit and wait through it too,” he said of the Sixers. “For me, it’s about trying to keep taking steps up or climbing forward and not giving any excuses. We had to lace them up and play and we didn’t get the job done. So I’m going to call it like I see it.”

He also brushed off the idea that the Knicks’ continuity could become a problem early, with opponents having so much film on them. “The teams are good,” Brown said. “Nick Nurse is a great coach. He’s got at least four perennial All-Stars on the team. And when you have that type of talent, you’re going to be able to win some games, and it doesn’t matter if you’re playing against a team with continuity or not.”

He finished by thanking James Dolan and the staff who put on the banner ceremony. “They weren’t in mud, like us,” he said. The Knicks play next at the Boston Celtics on Friday, October 23, at 7 p.m. ET, which is 2 a.m. Saturday in Cairo.