On a 5-game winning streak, playing in a back-to-back at the crib—the New York Knicks looked to end all the “East is wide open” chatter—thumping the Orlando Magic and marching to the 1 seed (although, the Pistons just beat the Bulls without Cade Cunningham or Jalen Duren so the plucky young heroes still remain at the top of the Coast).
After a brutal 1-4 start, the Orlando Magic looked to get back to .500—proving their early-season stummy ache passed—returning their top-tier defense and discovering exactly what the newly acquired Desmond Bane actually does.
The Orlando Magic beat the pulp out of the Knicks in a 124-107 victory in Manhattan—improving to 6-6—figuring out how all their parts work together, trial and error, research and development phase almost complete.
Paolo Banchero scored 4 points in 12 minutes—left early with a groin injury, never to return. Sucks.
Jalen Brunson scored 31 points on 10-for-23 shooting with 6 assists—playing 5-on-2 basketball—his only help in the form of Landry Shamet middies.
Landry Shamet solidified into the Knicks core.
Landry Shamet, traded 4 times, waived twice, a career 38% shooter from 3—unable to maintain a consistent home in the NBA—forever fighting to prove he belongs in a league that employs Ben Sheppard and Giannis’s tax-dependents.
Landry Shamet picking up where he left off! 🔥
(Via: @nyknicks )#NewYorkForever #Knicks #NBA pic.twitter.com/UOkMOJJqc2
— Top Bunk Sports (@Topbunksports) November 13, 2025
Last season, Landry Shamet made the biggest impact Tom Thibodeau would allow—always making the most of his limited minutes.
Hitting in-motion, catch-and-shoot threes, handcuffing himself to his defensive assignments—ready whenever Thibs randomly called him at 3am, off the sauce.
This season, Landry has 3 starts under his belt.
He’s shooting 43% from 3, focused on defense, maximizing his minutes.
Against Orlando, Shamet provided a spark off the bench—scoring in the silence left behind by OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns no-showing the game.
Landry stepped in, hitting an open 3 and beating close outs, driving to the foul line extended for middies off the dribble—a beautiful sight.
Landry Shamet shoots like a guy who’s perfected his craft through 1,000,000 hours of gym workouts—the type of sweaty, exhausting, painful workouts required for a player who always feels like he’s one bad game away from needing a passport.
But his 11 points weren’t enough—instead, exposing the biggest flaw of this season’s knicks.
The flaw in Leon Rose’s design
The Knicks lost the second game of a back-to-back against a young team eager to prove they are of the same cloth as a Knicks team expected to make the Conference Finals.
Losing this random game in November doesn’t eliminate the Knicks from contention but it does highlight the Knicks fatal flaw.
When you build around an itty bitty point guard who physically can’t stop anyone and a center with a negative vertical leap who walks onto the court with 5 fouls automatically on the sheet—you need OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges to cover the entire court defensively while applying pressure with dribble penetration on offense.
If either of those players disappears on either side of the ball, the Knicks must rely on KAT heroics—again, the foul trouble—or guys like Landry Shamet and Jordan Clarkson taking over offensive decision-making.
Jordan Clarkson took a 3 on a fastbreak, blocked into the stands.
Jordan Clarkson cannot be trusted with decision-making.
Against the Magic, Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby combined for 14 points on 13 shot attempts with 6 rebounds and 3 assists.
Both men took the night off—watching Jalen Brunson work two cash registers while they scrolled TikToks, rolling their eyes at customers complaining about the long checkout lines.
Again, this was the second game of a back-to-back early in the season—when players adjust to playing professional basketball 3-4 times a week.
But every game in the playoffs feels like back-to-backs.
Physical teams like the Detroit Pistons or Orlando Magic can turn OG and Mikal into spectators.
I love seeing Landry Shamet out there boogying.
He deserves it.
But he shouldn’t be a major factor in the outcomes unless starters are injured.
Fully healthy, either OG or Mikal, or preferably both, need to show up on both sides of the floor.
We’re 11 games in so, shrug.
Quick Orlando Magic Takes
- Paolo groin: We’ll get an update soon but Banchero out, again—just when he, Suggs, Wagner and Desmond Bane were aligning their chakras, is a bummer. Another injury-plagued season, coaches and execs start getting nervous. Orlando can only be the “next team up” so long before the outside pressure starts seeping into the team facility through the vents. No one who talks about the NBA for a living cares about unlucky injuries—especially before a team’s achieved real postseason success. They slip back under .500 and the NBA world will be drafting Franz Wagner trades, agents for coaches sending feelers out to Orlando regarding a potential open position. “Is it getting hot in here?” becomes the most common question on the sidelines.
- Anthony Black clutch: When the Knicks started to remember who they were, Anthony Black scored 9 points with 2 assists and a block in the 4th quarter, singlehandedly draining the life out of New York City like Zohran Mandami is about to, according to your paranoid coworker with the bad breath. Orlando needs Anthony Black, or honestly, anyone who can dribble, pass AND shoot—a skill seemingly nullified once a player puts on a Magic uni. At 21, in his 3rd season, a leap soon cometh. Just one more reliable perimeter teleports Orlando to, at least, the Conference Finals. Why not this year?
The Orlando Magic got the W but they may be missing their star for a while.
Congrats, or I’m sorry that happened to you.
Thanks for reading.
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