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NEW YORK – Maybe there is such a thing as a championship hangover.
At least for one night and three quarters of nearly flawless execution, the New York Knicks avoided an embarrassing history, and it might signal that the NBA champions are not ready for an extended stint in basketball rehab.
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Over the first three games of this new season, the Knicks looked nothing like the team that earned adulation and praise after snapping a 53-year title drought.
After a 111-97 win at Madison Square Garden over the Detroit Pistons, handing them their first loss, the 1969-70 Boston Celtics remain the last defending champs to start the season by losing each of their first four games. That team went 34-48 in its first season after legend Bill Russell retired.
New York, which snapped a six-game regular-season losing streak to Detroit, entered the game with the league’s least efficient offense, with a 40.8 field-goal percentage ranked only ahead of the Chicago Bulls.
“Close to 48 minutes of basketball the way we know we can play and like to play,” Knicks head coach Mike Brown said after the game. “We had some lulls where we weren’t as physical as we should’ve been, during the course of the game, but we had some really good moments. We had more good moments in this game than we did in the totality of the first three games, and that’s why we got the win.”
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In the first quarter, those bad trends held true to form as Detroit, with victories already over fellow Eastern Conference contenders the Boston Celtics, Miami Heat, and Philadelphia 76ers, raced out to a 38-25 first quarter lead, doing the things that they lacked in getting them bounced from the second round of the playoffs last season despite having the conference’s best record.
The Pistons relied on a balanced attack, with three different leading scorers in those three games, plus finding long-distance shooting, hitting 42% from downtown and scoring 118 points a game.
Their shooting abandoned Detroit after the first 12 minutes, as an 18-5 run by the Knicks in the second quarter tied the score at 43, led by reserve Landry Shamet, who scored 10 points during…
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Publish date : 2026-10-28 03:42:00
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