The Banner Went Up, Then the Knicks' Shooting Went Missing

The Knicks spent Tuesday night raising a banner for their first championship since 1973, then spent the next two and a half hours reminding everyone that the 2026-27 season started the moment the rope hit the ceiling. Philadelphia won 106-100 at Madison Square Garden, and the most striking number wasn't the final score — it was New York's 40.0% effective field goal percentage.

That's the whole story of opening night in one stat. The Knicks didn't get outclassed defensively; their defensive rating of 102.2 is respectable, and their 103.8 pace was fine. They simply couldn't put the ball in the basket. Jalen Brunson needed 19 shots for 21 points and hit one of three from deep. OG Anunoby went 3-of-12 overall and 1-of-9 from three. Mikal Bridges, who played 33 minutes, finished with four points on 2-of-8 shooting. Three starters, 2-of-14 combined from beyond the arc, and the offense generated a 96.4 rating against a Philadelphia team still figuring itself out.

The counterweight was Karl-Anthony Towns, who was efficient — 19 points, 12 rebounds, 3-of-4 from three — in just 24 minutes before fouling out of the flow with four turnovers. Josh Hart gave them 14 and 7 in 30 minutes off the bench. There's a version of this game where Towns plays 34 minutes and the Knicks win comfortably. Mike Brown's rotation, per The Athletic, was explicitly a laboratory on opening night, and lab sessions cost you games in October.

Meanwhile, LeBron James' Philadelphia debut was not a vintage LeBron performance — 14 points on 5-of-13, 0-of-3 from three — but 9 rebounds, 7 assists, and Jaylen Brown's 19-8-6 were enough. The Knicks now have a genuine Atlantic Division rival constructed specifically to beat them, and they'll see it again in Philadelphia on October 30.

The off-court variable matters more than one loss. The Knicks tabled all contract extension talks in early October, including for Towns and Hart, and the deadline for Towns to opt in and extend passed on October 20 without a deal. Towns said the news caught him off guard. That's not a crisis — it's a season-long distraction sitting in the middle of the locker room, and it lands on the same player whose minutes are the clearest lever on this team's ceiling. The frontcourt depth behind him got thinner in one direction and stranger in another when New York waived Bruce Brown to keep James Wiseman as the final roster spot.

What's next is a measuring stick rather than a referendum. New York travels to Boston on October 23 before home dates with Orlando and Detroit and a return trip to Philadelphia. For a team that won 70 games a year ago and still grades out as a top-five side in our power ratings, one cold shooting night is noise. But the Knicks just learned something useful: the margin between repeating and raising a banner that commemorates last season is thinner than the summer's hype suggested, and it runs directly through whether Towns is on the floor and whether anyone besides Brunson can make a shot when the building is loud.

The banner stays up. The questions are just beginning.