It took the New York Knicks five days this season to lose as many games as they did during their historic playoff run last spring.
The Knicks will look to halt their season-opening skid Tuesday night when they host the Detroit Pistons in a battle of Eastern Conference powers.
Both teams were off Monday after playing Sunday night. The Knicks opened a two-game homestand by squandering a 10-point fourth quarter lead in a 111-102 loss to the Orlando Magic while the Pistons continued their three-game road trip with a wire-to-wire 106-93 win over the Philadelphia 76ers.
With Sunday’s loss, the Knicks fell to 0-3 this season. They went 16-3 last spring — a stretch that included 13 straight wins — while winning the franchise’s first NBA title since 1973.
The Knicks are the first defending champions to open 0-3 since the Dallas Mavericks began their title defense with an 0-3 start during the lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign.
No reigning champion has lost more than three straight games to open its defense since the 1969-70 Boston Celtics started 0-4.
The Knicks once again surrendered an untimely late run Sunday, when the Magic ended the game on a 35-16 surge.
New York fell behind for good in its season opener last Tuesday, when the 76ers ended the third on an 11-0 run in their 106-100 win. On Friday night, the Celtics took control in the third quarter before Jayson Tatum took over down the stretch in Boston’s 107-103 victory.
The Knicks were the ones thriving in the second half last spring, when they alternated lopsided wins with dramatic comebacks during their championship run.
New York set an NBA playoffs record with an average margin of victory of 14.9 points per game. It also overcame a 22-point deficit in the fourth quarter of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers and a 29-point third-quarter deficit in Game 4 of the NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs.
“I think the one thing I see is when we get those runs and start to look like the team that we did in the past, we get comfortable,” Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson said. “So we have to continue to put our foot on the gas and execute like we did last year.”
Things will not get easier Tuesday against the Pistons, who won all three regular season games against the Knicks by an average of 28 points last season on their way to finishing first in the Eastern Conference with a 60-22 record. Detroit fell to the Cavaliers in seven games in the conference semifinals.
Detroit has won its first three games this season, all against Eastern Conference contenders. After overcoming a 22-point deficit in a 121-113 win over the Celtics on Oct. 20, the Pistons never trailed the Miami Heat in a 128-111 win on Friday, when they buried the hosts with a game-opening 22-5 run.
The Pistons got out to another fast start Sunday, when they raced out to a 20-4 lead despite the absence of starters Jalen Duran (right hamstring) and Ausar Thompson (right ankle), each of whom were injured Friday night. Duran is expected to miss at least two weeks while Thompson is listed as questionable.
“We knew it was going to make us a better team, going against them early in the season,” said Pistons guard Daniss Jenkins, who had 18 points Sunday while starting for Thompson. “We just wanted to be ready for it, but beyond that, we want to be the best team in the world. We’ve got to prepare and take care of all the details and stuff and then put the effort out there.”
