Knicks come up short down stretch against Suns
Knicks guard Jalen Brunson drives past the Suns' Dillon Brooks and Devin Booker during the first half of an NBA basketball game on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Phoenix. Credit: AP/Ross D. Franklin
PHOENIX — All night long the Suns had pushed and shoved and hustled. It wasn’t the Knicks being bullied and not responding, as was the case in Detroit on Monday, but maybe it was fitting that on the most important play of the night, the Suns outhustled them one more time.
With the Knicks trailing by three points, Grayson Allen deflected Jalen Brunson’s pass to Mikal Bridges, and while Bridges passively watched the ball float out of bounds, Allen rushed over and knocked it off him with 13.5 seconds left. The Knicks challenged the call but lost, and Phoenix had the ball.
On a night when Allen and Dillon Brooks took turns aggressively trying to knock the Knicks off their game, watching a Sun knock it off a Knick seemed like a painful final blow in what became a 112-107 win by Phoenix.
“A situation like that, you’ve got to go get the basketball,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “You can’t rely on the officials to make the call. You’ve got to go get the ball and we didn’t get the ball.
“We told our guys, hey, look, they’re going to be up in you, they’re going to try to be physical with you. That’s the way they play. They’ve done a good job with it. We fell into the way that they played and even got frustrated, picking up a couple of offensive fouls. We have to do a better job with it instead of letting them dictate what’s going on on the floor.”
Brunson put the key mistake on himself. “Obviously, my turnover at the end,” he said. “That was just good defense from Oso [Ighodaro]. Just having his hands up and not letting me create enough space. So it was a careless pass. And that was the game.”
Allen hit two free throws after the turnover and Bridges sank a three-pointer to close the gap to 108-106 with five seconds left. Allen added two free throws with 4.5 seconds left to make it a two-possession game.
OG Anunoby nearly had a chance to pull off a miracle, drawing a foul from Royce O’Neale with 2.2 seconds left as he attempted a three-pointer in a four-point game, but the three missed and so did his first two free-throw attempts. After Anunoby made the third free throw, Brooks sank two free throws to end it.
Brunson had 27 points for the Knicks (24-14), who have lost five of their last six games. Devin Booker led the Suns (23-15) with 31 points and Brooks added 27, including 20 in the first half.
The Knicks fell behind 92-80 late in the third quarter. Still trailing by nine early in the fourth, they got four offensive rebounds on one possession; maybe the most important part of retaining possession was that they were able to get Brunson into the game with 9:15 left. He immediately scored in traffic, Anunoby followed with a three-pointer and the Suns’ lead was down to four.
Mitchell Robinson’s putback — one of six offensive rebounds he had in the fourth quarter — and Brunson’s lob to Robinson cut the Suns’ lead to 101-99, and Anunoby’s two free throws tied it with 3:04 remaining.
Booker hit a midrange jumper to push Phoenix back in front, Brunson lost control of the ball with 1:34 left and O’Neale delivered a three-pointer to give the Suns a 106-101 lead.
Deuce McBride hit a tough baseline jumper with 53.9 seconds left and
Ighodaro missed two free throws with 30.4 seconds to play, giving the Knicks the ball with a chance to tie and setting up the Allen-Bridges play.
After a quiet first half, Karl-Anthony Towns took control on five of the Knicks’ first six possessions of the second half, drawing a foul, hitting a three-pointer and adding a layup. But the Knicks, who trailed by two at the half, fell behind by double-digits and were in chase mode again as they grew frustrated with the Suns’ aggressive defense, the officiating and maybe the unexpected chilly weather in Phoenix.
The Knicks’ biggest problem in the first half was Brooks, and not for the usual assortment of defensive shoves and grabs he utilizes to frustrate the best offensive players in the game. While he was doing that, making things as difficult for Brunson as possible, it was on the other end that the Knicks did not have an answer for him.
Brooks had 20 points and shot 6-for-10 in the first half, including 4-for-6 from beyond the arc. He ended the half by nearly getting ejected as he engaged in an animated argument with official Courtney Kirkland before being pulled away to the locker room by Suns coaches and security.
Notes & quotes: Josh Hart, who suffered a sprained right ankle on Christmas Day, has traveled with the Knicks on this four-game western trip, but Brown said he was uncertain if he will make his return during the trip. “I don’t know,’’ he said. “I know he’s progressing every single day. He’s doing controlled scrimmaging right now. So we’ll see, but he’s definitely getting close.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
