76ers 79, Knicks 73: “What time does the game start tonight?”

You can’t script this thing any better, can you?

On Oscars Sunday of all days, the Knicks and the Sixers put together a masterpiece—for the bad, that is—with New York coming off one of their best defensive games of the season.

Just a couple of days after limiting a hapless Orlando Magic squad to a measly 76 points on Friday, the lowest score of the season until Sunday, all the Knicks could do yesterday was score 73 points throughout 48 minutes of play.

Even more damaging is the fact that, for the second consecutive game, New York somehow limited an opponent to score fewer than 80 points... yet they lost! How is that even possible!?

Since the Association introduced the 3-point line ahead of the 1980 season, there had been just 286 games in which a team limited their rival to <80 points and went on to lose that game. That might sound like it’s happened a lot of times, but since the 1980 season, there have been more than 54,000 NBA games played...

...which means this joke of a result has only happened in around 0.005% of them, or about one time every 200 games. Of course, the Knicks had to find themselves on the wrong side of things and enter that select club of historically awful teams.

But again, what drives me bat crazy is the fact that Philadelphia failed to hit the 80-point plateau on Sunday. Eighty-freaking-points. In this economy. And they still came back to their hotel with the dub in the bag. For real.

The Knicks and the Sixers combined for a staggering 152 points. Four times this season a single team has scored at least 153 points, three of those times in regulation:

• IND 157, at ATL 152
• BOS 155, vs. IND 104
• UTA 154, vs. DET 148 (OT)
• NOP 153, vs. UTA 124

It’s the first time since 2016 that two teams scored fewer than 80 points. It’s the first time since 2018 that the Knicks were held to 73 or fewer points. It’s just the 51st time since 1980 that a New York Knicks team failed to score more than 73 points, and it’s the first time since the 2001 season opener that it happened to them in a matchup against Philly.

In the early aughts, of course, teams worked under an entirely different rulebook and landscape, and the scoring environment was completely opposite to the current one. That’s why then and there, the Knicks still put up a respectable 35.7 field-goal percentage shooting 27.3% from beyond the arc.

On Sunday, the Knicks attempted 40 triples and scored nine of them for a 22.5 3P%. They hoisted 80 field-goal attempts of which only 26 found the net for a putrid 32.5% accuracy rate. Hell, the only thing saving them was the 12-of-16 from the charity stripe.

The Knicks committed 21 turnovers leading to 19 points by the Sixers. They won the rebounding battle by three boards (50 to 49) but they were outscored in the paint (30 to 34). They fell just one dime short of matching Philly’s tally (19 to 20) and they finished with the same steals (nine) and blocked shots (five). It was awfulness galore on both sides of the floor.

And still...

That’s all they did, “play like s—t,” in the words of Josh Hart.

The Sixers came with a clear gameplan in mind, which is one that anyone can devise considering the precarious status of the Knicks rotation and the many banged-up bodies still populating the team shelves from one end to the other: stop Jalen Brunson by any means necessary and force the rest of the Manhattanites to beat you.

Jalen Brunson on Sunday: 19-3-8-0-0 with 2 TOs in 33 minutes. 6-22 FG, 1-9 3P, 6-8 FT.

Non-Brunson Knicks (eight players) on Sunday: 54-47-11-9-5 with 17 TOs in 207 minutes. 20-58 FG, 8-31 3P, 6-8 FT.

That’s an average line of 7-6-1-1-1 per player in 26 minutes, which wouldn’t even be good production for an end-of-the-bench reserve.

Brunson wasn’t going to throw his teammates under the bus because he never does and he always blames himself first. He wasn’t great, far from it, but at least he did something while getting most of the attention and tightest defense from those on the other end.

Donte DiVincenzo (15) was the only other starter scoring double-digit points for the Knicks, and Bojan Bogdanovic (10) was the only player on the Knicks’ bench scoring more than five points. All four reserves attempted at least three shots apiece—Deuce McBride went 0-for-5 and Alec Burks cooked himself another silly 1-of-3.

Shake Milton, in case you are wondering, logged a smooth DNP-CD against this former team. Better luck Tuesday. “Situational,” Thibs called it.

The game was so ‘90s that it even had a little defused scuffle. Shouts out to Donte and Isaiah Hartenstein for defending their home turf.

The Knicks had not completed two different games (one scoring 75 or fewer, the other one allowing 75 or fewer) in the same season since 2008. They had only done it multiple years in the early aughts and before, of course, because that was the norm back then, but what they accomplished between last Friday and Sunday had been virtually unheard of in the past 20 years of NYC professional basketball.

On the dark end of the spectrum, well, there was nothing to really like about this game other than Brunson doing his usual damage and nobody else getting injured (although I-Hart gave us a scare).

On the bright end, at least the rest of the L gave New York a little relief with the Magic, the Cavs, and the Heat (against the Pacers, though) all losing their games, leaving the Eastern Conference playoff picture pretty much the same as it was entering Sunday’s slate.

As things stand, assuming the Play-In Tournament unfolds as expected with Indiana and Miami advancing, the Knicks would face Orlando (1-3 against them in the regular-season series) with a second-round matchup against the winner of the Boston vs. Miami matchup.

That’d be tough as nails, and that’s why you might have started to read about why this or that team in the East (outside of Boston, Milwaukee, and probably Cleveland) might want to play around with the idea of falling to the no. 6 seed instead of finishing with the fourth or fifth seed. The bottom line: avoiding Boston for as long as possible.

But hey, there are still 18 games and more than a month left to play, nothing is set in stone, and you never know how many more curveballs you’ll be thrown.

For starters, the Knicks host Philly again on Tuesday. Kelly Oubre Jr. let it slip the Sixers will have starting point guard Tyrese Maxey (concussion) back and available after he traveled with the team but missed Sunday’s outing. Tom Thibodeau didn’t confirm OG Anunoby’s return but the wing was shooting without visible issues before yesterday’s matchup, though he was ruled out one day before tip-off.

Do you want to know the definitive answers? Tune in tomorrow and find out. Tip-off at 7:30 ET. Don’t miss it.