No matter what transpires on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, it’s going to be a banner night for the New York Knicks.
The blue-and-orange laundry on the hardwood side of MSG will gain some long-awaited company as the Knicks will officially conclude their 2026 championship tour. A divisional duel with the Philadelphia 76ers will follow, one that will serve as the red, white, and blue debut for prior champions Jaylen Brown and LeBron James.
The Knicks, of course, kept nearly all of last year’s championship core together as the winds of change swept through other Eastern locales. That includes their lauded starting five of OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart, Karl-Anthony Towns, and newly-minted NBA Finals MVP Jalen Brunson.
The biggest change on the metropolitan ledgers, ironically enough, is a former Philadelphian: Andre Drummond is now the Knicks’ top spell option behind Towns after Mitchell Robinson moved to another divisional rival, one of the green variety. Other key reserves maintained from the championship trek include Jose Alvarado, Jordan Clarkson, Miles McBride, and Landry Shamet.
Part one of this title defense features an anticipated matchup with the 76ers, one of the victims of the Knicks’ bracketed rampage last spring. Philadelphia returned to the playoffs after one-year absence last season and took down the second-seeded Boston Celtics before running into Manhattan’s juggernaut.
Brown and James join incumbent stars VJ Edgecombe, Joel Embiid, and Tyrese Maxey in a question to end one of the NBA’s most dire droughts: it has a quarter-century since the Sixers were among the Association’s final four, the longest active tally behind only Washington and Charlotte.
This will be the first of four meetings between the Knicks and Sixers this season and one of two this month, as New York will visit Xfinity Mobile Arena on Oct. 30. The two split the regular season quartet last time around, with the most recent entry to that list being the Knicks’ 138-89 shellacking of the Sixers in February.
What To Know
What: Philadelphia 76ers (0-0) @ New York Knicks (0-0)
Where: Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
When: Tuesday, 7 p.m. ET, NBC/Peacock (Banner ceremony begins at 6:30 p.m. ET)
Wager: NYK ―4.5 (o/u 231.5)
Keep An Eye On: Miles McBride
The penultimate day of 2023 will be long-remembered in metropolitan lore: it’s the day that saw Anunoby arrive from Toronto, a transaction that somewhat buried the news of McBride receiving an extension upon the departures of RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley.
This game starts the final countdown on that extension and McBride sits in a precarious position as the Knicks attempt to pave their road while keeping with the apparently tradition of staying compliant with the second salary apron. The fact that the Knicks re-upped with backcourt depth stars Clarkson and Shamet on multi-year deals has to be a bit foreboding for McBride’s metropolitan future.
The Knicks have never been ones to let homegrown nostalgics get in the way of a good deal. Heck, that’s how many viewed dealing away Barrett and Quickley before Anunoby helped bring a ring home. Armed with a sterling two-way game and an expiring contract, McBride stands as the most attractive candidate for metropolitan trade partners. How the Knicks use him, especially in these early stanzas, will be one of the subplots to keep an eye on as the championship buzz wears off.
Sixer to Watch: Joel Embiid
Ordinarily, this should be a spot to spotlight a depth star. A supposed superteam, after all, only goes as far as its second unit takes it. Alas for the Sixers, the injury bug has taken aim at their acquired reinforcements, particularly in Embiid’s interior domain.
Knicks fans briefly put rivalries aside to jointly mourn the loss of 2026 champion Ariel Hukporti, who will miss his debut season in Philadelphia due to an Achilles rupture. Dominick Barlow has already been ruled out while Adem Bona and Dean Wade will likely be game-time decisions. That puts the onus on the embattled Embiid, whose own checkered injury history requires little re-visitation as tip-off looms.
The Knicks’ championship run has turned Embiid into perhaps the most prominent ringless target for the amateur and professional hardwood jesters. Taking advantage of a New York interior that’s playing its first game without Robinson on the payroll in quite some time could set the tone for a vital season on his timeline.
They Said It
“The reality of it, in coach talk, you want to say every game is the same,” the Knicks coach said Sunday. “That’s what you try to impress upon your guys is, ‘Hey, when we step on the floor, no matter who’s in front of us, you want to give the same focus, energy and effort to the next possession in front of you.’ But because of the talk, because of who [James] is, he is a large figure not just in life, but in the NBA. You also got to look at the guys they have on the team and the guys they’ve added and the potential of that team and what we accomplished and what we’re trying to accomplish again — all those storylines, with the social media and all that other stuff, it’s pressed upon you, pressed upon you, pressed upon you, so it gets larger than life in general.”—Knicks head coach Mike Brown on opening against former protege James and the 76ers (h/t Jared Schwartz, New York Post)
“The environment is going to be tough. There’s going to be a lot of people in here, it’s their ring ceremony night. It’s going to be a long night for us. But just going to be competitive. I know they’re going to come out ready but we just got to be ready as well … I’ve had a few ruin my [ring] nights before, it’s not fun. But my team, we want to start off great as well. So if it’s their ring night, they got to take the first loss.”—76ers guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (h/t Jared Schwartz, New York Post)
Prediction
No one’s saying that the Knicks’ road to a repeat is going to be easy. For every continued profession of “Knicks in five” among the devout metropolitan masses, there is a silent acknowledgement of power from abroad, whether it’s new conferenced enemies like James joining the fray or season foes like Tyrese Haliburton making his hyped return in Indianapolis.
Having said all that, though, the beauty of a championship defense’s opening night is that nobody has proven that they’re capable of knocking you off your perch quite yet. Armed with a familiar cast and a sixth man that won’t be getting over the championship success anytime soon, the Knicks are in prime position to pen a brilliant first act for this anticipated sequel.
