Banner night first, then LeBron's Sixers: Knicks open title defense against a super-team

Banner night, super-team debut

On Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks — NBA champions for the first time in 53 years — will raise the banner, then try to spoil the debut of the East's most ambitious roster experiment: LeBron James' Philadelphia 76ers.

The Knicks begin their title defense as part of an Opening Night triple-header. On one side: the continuity champion, the core of Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby that ended a 53-year wait and now chases the first repeat since the 2017-18 Warriors. On the other: a Philadelphia super-team built around Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Jaylen Brown and LeBron James, with VJ Edgecombe completing a starting five that reads like an All-Star ballot.

The strangest preseason in recent memory

Philadelphia's exhibition season ended Friday with a 125-120 overtime loss to the Boston Celtics at Xfinity Mobile Arena. The Celtics sat nearly their entire veteran core — Jayson Tatum, Derrick White, Payton Pritchard, Mitchell Robinson, Sam Hauser, Paul George, Neemias Queta, Mike Conley and Devin Carter all watched — and handed the clipboard to former Sixers assistant Sam Cassell while Joe Mazzulla took the night off. Boston still won behind Hugo Gonzalez's 21 points to finish 4-0.

The Sixers' stars got real work in: Embiid posted 27 points, eight rebounds and five assists in 29 minutes and threw down a dunk: "I thought I would never dunk again... I kind of got possessed," Embiid said.

Maxey added 22 points and six assists. Jaylen Brown had 20 points, eight rebounds, three assists, a steal and two blocks against the franchise where he became a champion; James added eight points, eight rebounds and seven assists in his first preseason as a Sixer.

Chemistry is the whole story

Afterward, Maxey admitted the talent is real and the timing isn't — yet. "I think it's still going to take some time," he said. "I mean, we got a lot of different guys than we did last year... definitely going to take some time." His prescription for Tuesday: "Stay poised. Game of runs. Crowd is going to be electric. Going to be loud. Stay together."

The numbers back him up: 18 percent from deep and a 15-rebound deficit in the finale. The season-defining question: can the league's most stacked collection of talent turn its names into a team that wins the ugly margins?

The Knicks kept their champions

New York's summer was the anti-Philadelphia: continuity. Eight different franchises have won the last eight championships, and the Knicks are betting familiarity is an edge no star-collecting can buy. Brunson remains the closer, Towns the offensive hub, and Hart, Bridges and Anunoby know exactly how to complement the stars.

The Knicks enter as 5.5-point favorites with the total at 231.5 per BetMGM. The New York prediction: LeBron and the new-look Sixers fight hard, but the Knicks win banner night.

One preseason meeting already

This will not be the first time these two have met: the Sixers opened preseason on Oct. 5 by beating the defending champions 120-97, with Jaylen Brown scoring 22 points — all in the first half — in his unofficial Philadelphia debut. James, Maxey and Embiid sat that night, but Philadelphia's depth pieces have beaten New York's reserves once already.

That depth will matter. The finale cost Philadelphia bodies: Dean Wade rolled his ankle and didn't return — "not major concern, just cautious because it's a preseason game," said Nick Nurse. The Sixers were already without Simons (hamstring), Bona (left foot sprain), Barlow (back), Hukporti (right Achilles tendon tear) and Fall (left hip sprain). Edgecombe was held out by design and should be full go Tuesday.

What the East already knows

The smartest read on Boston's 125-120 win is that the lineups made the outcome memorable, not an exhibition rewriting the East — the undefeated preseason is a useful sign of depth, not a prediction. The same logic applies in reverse to Philadelphia: optimism in Embiid's movement, Maxey's poise and Brown's two-way fit — and a clear warning about defense and ball value when games get messy.

Tuesday is the first real test: the Knicks' continuity against the Sixers' talent. Banner first, then 48 minutes that will tell us more about the East than the whole preseason did.

TLDR

• The Knicks raise their first championship banner in 53 years on Tuesday, Oct. 20 at Madison Square Garden — then host LeBron James' new-look 76ers in the regular-season opener (7 p.m. ET, NBC/Peacock).
• Philadelphia added James and Jaylen Brown to Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe, forming the East's most stacked roster.
• The Sixers closed preseason with a 125-120 overtime loss to a skeleton Celtics squad; Boston finished 4-0 with Sam Cassell coaching in Joe Mazzulla's place.
• New York, chasing the first repeat since the 2017-18 Warriors, enters as a 5.5-point favorite with the total at 231.5.

Key points

• Joel Embiid: 27 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists in the finale — and an unexpected dunk after an injury-marred year.
• Jaylen Brown scored 20 points with 8 rebounds against his former team; Maxey added 22 points and 6 assists.
• Boston's Hugo Gonzalez led all scorers with 21 points in 20 minutes; the Celtics' deep bench culture survived the stars' night off.
• Sixers depth concerns: Dean Wade rolled an ankle; Simons, Bona, Barlow, Hukporti and Fall all missed the finale.
• New York kept its championship core: Brunson, Towns, Hart, Bridges and Anunoby.
• The Sixers beat the Knicks 120-97 in the preseason opener on Oct. 5 — albeit with both teams missing stars.