Kristian Winfield: Knicks rout Wizards, 145-113, despite another poor first quarter

Kristian Winfield, New York Daily News on Mar 22, 2026

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NEW YORK — No longstanding NBA scoring records were hurt in the making of the New York Knicks’ 145-113 victory over the Washington Wizards on Sunday. As for the egos of the players suiting up for the nation’s capital? That’s a completely different story.

Clobbering Time was in full effect at Madison Square Garden, where the Knicks — in what’s become typical Knicks fashion — were tied, 38-38, against a 16-win team with 9:05 left in the second quarter, before outscoring the Wizards, 113-86, for their sixth win in a row on Sunday.

The Knicks are now the third-hottest team in basketball behind only the league-leading Oklahoma City Thunder, who’ve won 11 in a row, and the Los Angeles Lakers, who are riding a nine-game winning streak up the Western Conference standings.

And the performance was par for the course for a Knicks team that has struggled in first quarters this season, regardless of the opponent, but the most glaring instances came against teams with little to play for, just like the Wizards.

The Knicks trailed the Brooklyn Nets, 22-14, before winning at Barclays Center, 93-92, on Friday. They lost the first quarter to the Golden State Warriors without Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Jimmy Butler or Kristaps Porzingis, 35-21, before mounting a ferocious comeback in a 110-107 victory. They barely won each of the first quarters in two recent meetings with the Indiana Pacers, and they lost the first quarter to the Utah Jazz, a 20-win team at the time, by 15 points.

The Knicks lost the first quarters against both the Los Angeles Clippers and Lakers, and they lost the first quarter to the Denver Nuggets by two before rattling off a 39-point victory.

“There was a time when we were struggling I think in the third quarter, coming out of halftime. Two games ago, we were great. Against Indiana, we were great. Im not gonna lie, I don’t remember who we played before that. Against Golden State, we stunk. I don’t know who we played before that,” head coach Mike Brown recalled ahead of tipoff on Sunday. “So you try to prepare your guys and not overreact to struggles that you may have that could be short-term or temporary. So we’re not to a point where I’m gonna try to do something out of the box with the guys. They are a veteran group and like I said, we’ve struggled in other areas throughout the course of the year before. So I’m gonna keep doing what we’re doing and in due time, if we need to change this or change that I’m definitely not opposed to it, as all you guys know, from our players to our staff, I’m not opposed to somebody else saying ‘hey, let’s do this instead of that.’”

The Knicks did not lose the first quarter against the miserable Wizards — without All-Stars Trae Young (back/quad) and Anthony Davis (finger), budding young talent Alex Sarr (toe), combo guard Tre Johnson (foot), starting wing Kyshawn George (elbow), sharpshooter Justin Champagnie (suspension) or wing Cam Whitmore (deep vein thrombosis). But only beating the short-handed Wizards by five in the opening period felt like a continuation of the very bad habits that have plagued this team—habit the Knicks gloss over with their supreme firepower in the middle two periods of a ball game.

That won’t work in the playoffs, where possession integrity is at a premium. It will work, however, in games that don’t matter. Games like the six-game stretch of NBA Draft Lottery-bound teams the Knicks will conclude on Tuesday against the New Orleans Pelicans.

Karl-Anthony Towns scored a game-high 26 points on 9-of-13 shooting from the field to go with 16 rebounds and three assists. Jalen Brunson added 23 points and four assists, and Mikal Bridges scored 14 points on 6-of-11 shooting from the field, his highest-scoring game since 15 points against the Oklahoma City Thunder on March 4.

The Wizards got 25 points off the bench from Jaden Hardy and another 18 points from Anthony Gill, but no Wizards starters scored more than Bub Carrington’s 14 points.

The Knicks’ stretch of tanking opponents concludes with Tuesday’s matchup against the New Orleans Pelicans. Following that game, the Knicks face a four-game road trip mostly against teams in the playoff or play-in tournament picture, including matchups against LaMelo Ball and the Charlotte Hornets, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s OKC Thunder, Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets, and, the lone exception of the group, the rebuilding Memphis Grizzlies.

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