Category: Basketball

As the calendar turns to 2026, resolutions are being made across the globe for the next 12 months, hoping to accomplish in the new year what couldn’t be done prior. For the Knicks and their fans, there’s only one resolution that really needs to come true in this high-stakes 2026, but we’ve put together five for the franchise to tackle anyway.

Win Jalen Brunson the MVP award

To be clear, head coach Mike Brown, Brunson and the rest of the team have done all they can here. Brunson’s having a career year, averaging just under 30 points and seven assists on efficient shooting numbers, while the Knicks are streaking towards the top of their conference and one of the best records in basketball.

If not for the generational juggernaut in Oklahoma City, Brunson would already be a serious contender here. Brown’s spent multiple press conferences trying to garner appropriate hype that just hasn’t come.

More needs to be done: Brunson just came in third in the East in All-Star fan voting when he should be a face of the league. This is a call on the Knicks organization and greater New York elite to step up, get the propaganda machine turning and expend whatever political and economic capital they have to get this man the respect he deserves.

Add depth at the trade deadline

It’s all or nothing for the Knicks now, the far-and-away favorites to come out of the East and potentially capture the franchise’s first championship in over a half-century. From top to bottom the franchise has operated with that view in recent years, trading the star player and firing the head coach that set off this very rebuild in pursuit of glory.

That means they shouldn’t be getting conservative around 2026’s trade deadline, the last chance the Knicks will get to upgrade their roster before the postseason hunt. Leon Rose and company haven’t been shy about making midseason moves, and everybody outside of the core rotation should be treated as expendable. 

It’s unlikely we see a ground-shaking move like acquiring Giannis Antetokounmpo or even an All-Star level player, but the Knicks should be able to package enough assets to bring in another real contributor. In the playoffs, every bit of margin helps. 

Get Mikal Bridges attacking the rim

Coming into this season and early on thus far, it looked like we were getting a more aggressive Bridges -- one unafraid of contact or attacking the rim. This was an enticing prospect because when he plays like this he’s able to really utilize his creation and his game goes to another level. 

While he’s still driving towards the rim, putting together big scoring nights and showing more tenacity defensively, he’s regressed back to not looking at the cup when he gets into the paint. By way of comparison, he had 33 free throws in the first 17 games and has had seven in the 15 since (entering play on Wednesday). 

The resolution for Bridges should be avoiding another clip of him turning down open layups for fading jumpers or a kickout. 

Get Karl-Anthony Towns to ignore the officials

One would think Knicks fans would have gotten used to their score-first star second-fiddle big man living and dying with their emotions, but some are seemingly re-learning the Julius Randle lesson with Towns. In their defense, KAT has been too focused on the officials this season and it’s affected his play at times.

In his defense, the worst whistle in basketball appears to only have gotten worse. But he’s talented enough to play through it, and once he’s more focused on the game than the refs, they’ll start sending more calls his way. 

Towns’ resolution will be to try and contain some of that fire that’s made him so special since joining the league, the Knicks, and will make him an All-Star once again this season. 

Win the NBA Championship

2026 should be a year of lofty, ambitious goals, and there’s no greater bar to clear for this Knicks team. It’s no doubt been the resolution of many of their players long before this New Year’s, but it’ll be the same one atop everybody’s list this time around.

Warriors report card entering 2026 after turbulent start: Slight improvement originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Since our initial Warriors Report Card following the first 20 games of the 2025-26 NBA season, Golden State has gone 8-6, a slight improvement from being 10-10 since we last checked in. 

The hardest part of the schedule is over. Living life on the road with constant back-to-backs is done. Now that 2026 is here, it’s go-time for the Warriors at 18-16. 

Here’s how they grade out so far this session entering the new year.

Offense

How does a team that has Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler rank 21st in points per game (115.6)? Turnovers. The Warriors have turned the ball over the second-most times in the entire NBA. It’s why 11 of their 16 leads have come from blown fourth-quarter leads. 

They’re now 5-13 when they have more turnovers than their opponents, 10-2 when they have fewer and 3-1 when they’re tied with their opponent in turnovers. The system still creates open shots. The problem is the Warriors miss too many of them and don’t take care of them well enough.

The Warriors rank 18th overall in offensive rating (114.3), and were 11th for the month of December (116.3).

Grade: C-

Defense 

Advanced statistics like the Warriors’ defense a whole lot more than their offense. For the season, the Warriors now are third in defensive rating (111.8) and were fifth in December (111.9). 

There still are cracks. Point of attack remains a concern. A lack of stopping ball-handlers, plus being a smaller team, has them ranked 17th in opponent points in the paint per game (51.3). Somehow, the Warriors rank fourth in opponent 3-point percentage (34.3 percent), even though it feels like teams catch fire from deep at the worst times.

Second, third and fourth options still are having career games against the Warriors. Yet the numbers tell a different story.

Grade: B-

Stars 

So much has changed around the NBA, and so much has remained the same for Curry and the Warriors. He still is the sun of their solar system, and still needs others to shine brighter around him. 

The Warriors are 4-6 in the 10 games Curry has scored 30-plus points. Curry for the third straight season is leading the NBA in 3-point attempts and makes per game while shooting just under 40 percent from deep. After missing five games to injury, he closed 2025 by scoring at least 20 points in eight of his final nine games, including two 39-point games and a 48-point game.

His second true star is Butler, who remains Mr. Efficient and has been everything the Warriors could hope for at 36 years old as of late. In his final seven games of the year, Butler averaged 21.4 points, 4.6 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game while shooting 53.3 percent from the field and 90.7 percent at the free-throw line on 7.7 attempts per game while averaging 33 minutes per game.

And then there’s Green. The last two games of December were his only with a positive plus/minus. He was ejected one game and took himself out of another, and the Warriors were better without him in both. Less is becoming more for Green, and the Warriors know they still are at their best when he’s at his best in all facets.

Grade: B+/A-

Additions 

From our first iteration of Warriors Report Cards for this season, we established the three players who fit this category are rookie Will Richard, and veterans De’Anthony Melton and Al Horford.

To honor older players and give them a longer leash, Richard was a healthy DNP (Did Not Play) in three straight games during December. The Warriors lost all three. Since then, Richard has played 20 minutes per game and averaged 8.3 points, 3.0 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.3 steals per game over the last six games, highlighted by his 10 points and two steals in the fourth quarter of the Warriors’ win against the Nets in Brooklyn. 

Horford finally returned from a seven-game absence on Christmas, and Melton made his season debut. The Warriors’ Christmas win was a display of what Horford brings with four threes and rim protection, and though Melton has struggled to find his shot, he clearly is one of their top defensive players already and has been a plus-57 in the 10 games he has played.

Grade: C+

Youth 

For the seventh straight game to close the calendar year, two younger players have accompanied Curry, Butler and Green in the starting lineup. Moody and Post, at least for now, have security as starters. But that always can change, and the Warriors still need those two to find more consistency shooting the ball. 

Several youngsters off the bench have come on strong as of late. Brandin Podziemski scored 19 points on New Year’s Eve and averaged 12.7 points on 51.7 percent shooting in December. Trayce Jackson-Davis has re-emerged in the center rotation with strong finishes around the rim, and Richard continues to impress, earning Steve Kerr’s trust to close games with his two-way impact.

Writing about Jonathan Kuminga might as well be with invisible ink. Wednesday was his fifth straight healthy DNP and he already has received eight this season. January 15, the first day Kuminga becomes trade eligible, can’t come soon enough for him and the team.

Grade: C+

Health 

A number of bumps and bruises have hampered the Warriors while still avoiding major injury. 

Steph Curry missed five straight games due to a quad contusion, and his young brother Seth has been sidelined due to sciatic-nerve issues in his pelvis and lower back. Horford missed three weeks because of sciatica, and Green was out for a few weeks with a right foot sprain. This is about how it goes for a team that has seven players who are at least 33 years old. 

As teams around the league have seen their stars miss multiple weeks or worse, the Warriors have played a game of roulette with who will be healthy or have to take a seat. In this case, things could be much more grim for Golden State.

Grade: B-

Overall 

The Warriors finished 2025 by winning five of their last six games. Though they failed to earn their first four-game win streak of the season with a bad loss against the Raptors in Toronto, the Warriors are finally are finding consistency in their starting lineup and rotations, as well as the win column.

As 2026 begins, the Warriors are the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference. The goal going into the season was to be a top-six seed, and they hoped to get greedy as a top-four seed. Well, the sixth-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves are three games ahead of them, and the fourth-seeded Houston Rockets are four games ahead.

Starting Friday against the Oklahoma City Thunder, 10 of the Warriors’ next 11 games are at home, and they don’t leave California until Jan. 22. This is their chance to bump their grades much closer to what they expected.

Grade: C+

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The Knicks scored a season-high 45 points in the first quarter and led by as many as 19 points on Wednesday night, but let it all slip away, eventually falling to the San Antonio Spurs, 134-132.

New York allowed 41 fourth-quarter points in the loss, including 12 to Julian Champagnie on a perfect 4-of-4 shooting from three-point land. The former St. John's star made a Spurs-record 11 threes in total, finishing with a game high 36 points.

After the game, head coach Mike Brown didn't beat around the bush with what went wrong for the Knicks.

"Great win by San Antonio, they just outworked us in a lot of different ways," Brown said. "Mitch (Johnson) kicked my a--, the rest of the team kicked our a--, we all got our a-- kicked today so you got to give San Antonio a ton of credit.

"Julian Champagnie, he was fantastic, he shot the mess out of the ball and he made the shots. I was a little disappointed in our guys because it was almost like we didn't respect him. We didn't pick him up in transition... We know he's a hot player and that's what he does, but he just kept getting look after look after look after look after look that were wide open. You give him a lot of credit because he knocked the shots down, but I was really, really disappointed in the way we defended him."

In addition to Champagnie's scoring being a difference-maker, the Spurs went 32-of-40 from the foul line compared to 18-of-20 shooting from the charity stripe for the Knicks. Brown acknowledged that some of San Antonio's foul shots came toward the end of the game, but still pointed to the large "free throw disparity" in the game. 

"40 free throw attempts, I know we fouled late in the game... They almost doubled us in free throw attempts the whole game," Brown said. "I don't know, maybe we weren't aggressive enough, I'm not sure. It'd be interesting to go back to look at the film to see why we couldn't get to the free throw line but why they were getting to the free throw line.

"That's a huge disadvantage if you're talking about 20 to 40 from the free throw line. And again you have to take into consideration that some of those fouls at the end of the game we were fouling to get an opportunity to stop the clock and try to go score. It's going to be tough if the free throw disparity is that big."

In addition to the fouling problems, Brown went on to discuss the team's defense as a whole. He said they need to do a better job about not reaching, instead "leading with the chest, not with our hands."

"We as a team got to figure out how we can be physical but defend without fouling," Brown said.

He emphasized New York's physicality needs to improve, believing the group hasn't shown that ability through a full game this season. Brown added that there needs to be a "sense of urgency" defensively in order to win games like Wednesday night's. 

"A team scores 134 points (against you), first of all it's our physicality," Brown said. "We haven't figured out how to be physical for 48 minutes in the last I don't know how many games. But doing it without fouling. We pick up some silly fouls that we have to do a better job of. I feel everybody understands that, but now we just have to go do it. Our physicality is not good. 

"I don't know if we're tired or what, but we have not been able to sustain anything defensively for 48 minutes. We've won a lot of games, and you want to win games, and you feel good about it. But at the end of the day, if we don't figure out how to sustain what we're supposed to do on the defensive end of the floor for 48 minutes it's going to be a long year for us and it's going to eventually catch up to us. Our physicality, our inability to sustain what we're supposed to do on that end of the floor, and for a while it was our transition defense... those areas are really big for us."

Like Brown mentioned, New York will need show an improved, physical style of defense if they want to achieve their long-term goals. Their first try at turning it around in 2026 comes right away as they'll face the Atlanta Hawks back home at The Garden on Thursday night.

The Knicks wrapped up their 2025 slate on a sour note, squandering several double-digit leads in a frustrating 134-132 loss to the Spurs on Wednesday night at Frost Bank Center.

Here are the takeaways...

-- Making his third career start, rookie forward Mohamed Diawara tried his best to set a tone, draining a pair of threes within the first three minutes of action to help push the Knicks out to an early 10-3 lead. But it didn't take long for the Spurs to find a rhythm, as a quick 11-0 run midway through the first quarter erased their early deficit and made the Knicks burn two timeouts. Much to the delight of head coach Mike Brown, the Knicks maintained a hot stroke from beyond the arc, making a whopping nine threes that contributed to a season-high 45 first-quarter points. It was their 14th opening period with 40-plus points this season -- the mark actually matched their total from last season.

-- Just when it looked like the Knicks' torrid scoring pace was unsustainable -- their lead of 12 points was trimmed down to four with 7:02 remaining in the second quarter, due to a few turnovers -- another heat check arrived. In a span of three minutes, they rattled off 14 unanswered points, extending their lead to an imposing 71-52 with 3:51 left. However, the inevitable cold spell finally appeared, as the Knicks failed to score a single point in the final 2:54 before halftime. The Spurs took advantage of that lull with a 9-0 run, cutting their deficit to 73-63 at the break.

-- Jalen Brunson was naturally the first-half catalyst, delivering 13 points as one of eight -- that's right, eight -- Knicks who made a three. But his baker's dozen, plus 15 from Karl-Anthony Towns, didn't pack the punch that Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama flaunted. The behemoth youngster led all first-half scorers with 22 points -- he was solely responsible for the closing 9-0 run -- and the Knicks didn't feel this presence from him during the NBA Cup final, since the Spurs carefully restricted his court time to 25 minutes then.

-- A quick eight points on two threes from Miles McBride pushed the Knicks' lead back to 14 with 8:43 remaining in the third, but once again, their cushion wasn't comfortable for long. Wembanyama and Julian Champagnie sparked a monstrous Spurs rally by scoring 19 combined points across four-plus minutes, and suddenly, the game was knotted up at 91-91 with 4:24 left in the quarter. Keldon Johnson then made a floater that gave the Spurs their first lead since the 6:13 mark of the first and reignited the crowd. In spite of the momentum swing, the Knicks recovered on both ends of the floor, producing 11 unanswered points while holding the Spurs scoreless in the final 3:23 to reclaim a nine-point lead, 102-93. No surprise, it was Brunson who added eight points to that energized run.

-- The Knicks' battles with Wembanyama, who logged 31 points through three quarters, abruptly ended within the first 90 seconds of the fourth. After grabbing the rebound on a missed Knicks three attempt, Wembanyama landed awkwardly in the paint and cameras caught his right knee buckle. Wembanyama stayed down for a few moments before hobbling directly to the locker room without any assistance from trainers. While he appeared to mouth, "I'll be back," to concerned Spurs fans, the 7-foot-4 threat never checked back in.

-- Somehow, the sudden absence of Wembanyama didn't crush the Spurs' spirits. A pair of threes from Champagnie cut their deficit back down to five, 110-105, with 7:29 remaining and prompted a Knicks timeout. While the Knicks bit back, bumping their lead to 116-109 with clutch jumpers from Jordan Clarkson off the bench, the Spurs rallied behind Champagnie, who added another two threes to knot the score at 116-116 and set a new franchise record with 11-made shots from beyond the arc. Call it a career night for Champagnie -- he scored a game-changing 36 points. Moments later, De'Aaron Fox made a layup that gave the Spurs another lead, 118-116.

-- While the Knicks entered the final minute trailing by just a point, poor defense, foul trouble, and missed shots forced the Spurs to the free-throw line and placed them in a six-point hole with just 10 seconds left. Miraculously, McBride drew a foul on a three-point attempt and made each shot at the charity stripe, cutting the Knicks' deficit to three. But an ensuing jump-ball claimed by the Spurs resulted in a victory-sealing two more points for the Spurs, and even a buzzer-beating three from Brunson was all for naught. Considering the opponent and NBA Cup rematch buildup, this was no ordinary crumble for the Knicks. They entered the night 19-0 when leading after three quarters, too.

-- The Knicks found a new way to lose, as a staggering 22-made threes on 52 attempts somehow weren't enough. The defensive breakdowns were also apparent in the fourth quarter, as they gave up 41 points in the period and struggled to get in the face of Champagnie and others. Overall, the Knicks were outrebounded, 48-40, and charged with 13 more fouls than the Spurs (30-17).

-- Contributions from McBride and Clarkson, who combined for 41 points off the bench on 15 of 29 shooting, were proven essential. Why? OG Anunoby was held to a scant nine points, and Diawara failed to score once after his pair of first-quarter threes. Brunson scored a team-best 29 points with eight assists and four rebounds across 36 minutes, while Towns accounted for 20 points in 33 minutes. Mikal Bridges was also quiet, limited to 13 points over 35 minutes.

Game MVP: Julian Champagnie

Champagnie deserves rounds of champagne this New Year's Eve. The St. John's product's game-high 36 points on a record-setting 11 threes simply crushed the Knicks.

Highlights

YESSIR MO ‼️ pic.twitter.com/viEY8pj43X

— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) January 1, 2026

BIG FELLA WITH THE 3️⃣

VOTE KAT ALL-STAR STARTER https://t.co/Ov3esq1i8zpic.twitter.com/TYGkYt20st

— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) January 1, 2026

KOLEK FROM THE CORNER pic.twitter.com/vZrGW900Gv

— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) January 1, 2026

CAP 🙂‍↕️

VOTE JB ALL-⭐️ STARTER https://t.co/Ov3esq1i8zpic.twitter.com/XWM0ckQwoK

— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) January 1, 2026

JC HUSTLE PLAYS 😮‍💨 pic.twitter.com/YRfkYDvU9F

— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) January 1, 2026

deuce for 3️⃣ 😮‍💨 pic.twitter.com/kqHUP8Gw2n

— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) January 1, 2026

ball movement ➡️ quick release 👌 pic.twitter.com/7YLl2puSUE

— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) January 1, 2026

WE LOVE TO SEE IT 🤩 pic.twitter.com/90mUM4o5yf

— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) January 1, 2026

GREAT LOOK. GREAT FINISH.

VOTE KNICKS FOR ALL-STAR STARTERS https://t.co/Ov3esq1i8zpic.twitter.com/myWXXFftu8

— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) January 1, 2026

Up next

The Knicks (23-10) will begin the 2026 calendar year at home, with a Friday night matchup against the Atlanta Hawks (7:30 p.m. tip-off).