Knicks, key players rested, are outscored by Wizards, 120-103, for first preseason loss
The Knicks, playing without a single starter and several key reserves, were overwhelmed by the Washington Wizards, 120-103, for their first preseason loss of the year Monday night at Madison Square Garden.
In their fourth preseason game of the year, the Knicks decided to sit Jalen Brunson, City of Karl-Anthony, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart, Ariel Hukporti, Mitchel RobinsonAND Landry Shamet. Head coach Mike Brown he said before the game that he intended to start Hukporti and play Shamet, who is one of three veteran players on non-guaranteed contracts fighting for a roster spot, but both were ruled out due to illness.
In their place, Malcolm Brogdon, Deuce McBride, Jordan Clarkson, Pacome DadietAND Guerschón Yabusele came out as a starting five with the intention of giving the second unit and roster bubble players extended time.
“I thought our starters didn’t bring the energy,” Brown said after the game. “This is probably our worst basketball game ever. We did it in spurts: We weren’t very good starting the game, we weren’t very good starting the third quarter.”
Washington capitalized by shooting lights out, 68.3% in the first half and 53.7% throughout the game. New York made up for its lack of defensive production with a tough shooting night, 41.9% in the first half and 44.4% for the game.
The plus-minus for the starters wasn’t pretty: Clarkson minus-29 in 21 minutes, Dadiet minus-20 in 24 minutes, Yabusele minus-33 in 23 minutes, Brogdon minus-30 in 18 minutes, McBride minus-26 in 28 minutes.
But, ever the maestro, there was a silver lining to take from a match that didn’t go his way.
“Great film to learn from because we made a lot of mistakes that weren’t characteristic of who we’ve been so far, even in practice, we’ve played a lot better than that in terms of what we’re trying to do offensively and defensively,” Brown said. “Great learning experience, we’ll all grow and hopefully take that step forward instead of just thinking we took a step back because we didn’t play well tonight.
Here are the takeaways…
– Dadiet took advantage of some nice opening drives, knocking down a pair of early threes. There were a few moments where the 20-year-old looked a little lost defensively. He finished with eight points on 2-of-7 shooting (2-of-6 from deep) with six rebounds (two offensive).
Before the game, Brown highlighted how the Knicks will look for opportunities this year to get Dadiet’s playing time as they really value his upside.
"He just has to continue to understand how big he is," Brown said. "It’s long. He’s a great winger. And sometimes he doesn’t use it. We always talk about playing big, playing big, playing big. And he doesn’t always use it. And that’s simply being young. Sometimes he’s a little quiet and a little unsure of what he should say or do.
"So we keep trying to throw it into the fire as much as possible. It’s something I’d like to do in the regular season. I don’t know how many minutes he will have per game. But he definitely has a chance to be a player in this league for a long time and you want to help him accelerate that development because you see a lot of good things.
"You see he can run, you can cut, he’s big… you see he does a terrible job finishing and shooting the ball. And when you couple that with his ability to play defense, you have a pretty good young prospect, especially for his age.
– One area of concern: The Wizards managed to make themselves look good and forced Brown into an early timeout. Defense is still a work in progress for this group of Knicks as they learn the new coach’s system, and Washington took advantage, connecting on 65 percent from the floor (13 of 20) in the first quarter for a 36-26 lead. That continued into the second half, with the visitors making seven of their next 10 field goals, hitting 71.4 percent shooting in the period (15 of 21 and 5 of 9 from three) for a 75-52 lead at halftime. Of course, the Wizards opened the third on an 11-0 run in an attempt to build a 34-point lead before the Knicks rallied to a more respectable deficit.
– Clarkson connected on three of his first five attempts (2 of 4 from three) in the first. He led the Knicks with 10 first-half points (4-of-7 shooting) and should have had a few assists if any open looks had gone down. It wasn’t a great night shooting from deep, 7 of 24 (29.2%) in the first half and 6 of 18 (33.3%) after halftime. Clarkson finished with 12 points on 4-of-11 shooting (2-of-5 from deep) with one rebound, four turnovers and zero assists.
Brown said the Wizards didn’t do anything “complicated,” they were “simply in the right place defensively.”
“They tried to play the way we played all preseason, every day in practice and it showed at times that the basketball was very good basketball,” he said, adding that overall it wasn’t good enough. “We needed to do better collectively as a unit when it came to doing the little things, starting with boxing, we weren’t good at that. Defensively, we weren’t good on our shifts, and we’d been pretty damn good in those two areas so far.”
– One of the culprits that hurt Clarkson’s assists was McBride, who was 1 of 5 in the first half, missing all four of his three attempts, with two turnovers and two fouls in the first half. McBride found his range early in the quarter with consecutive threes to cut the deficit to 19. He finished with 11 points on 4-of-12 shooting (2-of-9 from three) with two assists and one rebound.
– Brogdon, another of the three veterans on a non-guaranteed contract, got off to a cold start (2-of-7 from the floor) in the first and committed three fouls; added three assists. A slow pace appeared on the offensive end. His night ended with four points on 2-of-7 shooting with three assists, two rebounds and a steal.
– Yabusele made his first preseason three in the first, along with two assists early, and showed off a hook jumper in the second. The new Knick made another three midway through the third, just the team’s second basket on the first 12 attempts of the quarter, which cut it to a 30-point deficit. He finished with 11 points on 4-of-8 shooting with five rebounds (four offensive) and two assists.
– Tyler Kolek had a solid second quarter with seven points, three assists and a steal. He made a nice run of three consecutive buckets to end the third, cutting the deficit to 100-75. Kolek finished with a team-high 20 points on 7-of-13 shooting (1-of-5 from three) with six assists, four rebounds and one steal. He finished a plus-10.
“I thought the guys who came off the bench did a great job, Tyler gave us some great minutes," Brown said.
– Trey Jemison III added nine points with four rebounds and was a plus-11 in 15 minutes. Tosan Evbuomwan he scored seven points and four rebounds and was 17-plus in 15 minutes.
Highlights
A couple of corner triples for Pacôme Dadiet pic.twitter.com/l9d0aSOSO2
— Knicks Video (@sny_knicks) October 13, 2025
Kevin McCullar Jr. of DEEP pic.twitter.com/jjVZsqGtW0
— Knicks Video (@sny_knicks) October 14, 2025
What’s the next step?
The Knicks conclude their preseason slate with a Friday night matchup against the Charlotte Hornets at MSG. The show is set for 7:30 before New York opens the regular season on October 22.