Daily Report – 2/9/26

Yankees

The countdown begins! Yankees’ pitchers and catchers report to Tampa in three days.

Knicks

Jose Alvarado is going to be an amazing Knick. Yesterday in Boston, Grand Theft Alvarado excelled in his orange-and-blue debut as the Knicks blew out the Celtics, 111-89. After a rough loss to Detroit on Friday, yesterday’s game was as much of a must-win contest as the Knicks have played all season.

Despite being without OG Anunoby due to a sore toe, the Knicks maintained a consistent, high-caliber defense from the opening tip to the final buzzer. Alvarado provided a defensive energy that his team couldn’t find on Friday against the Eastern Conference-leading Pistons. That night, they were without Anunoby and Karl-Anthony Towns, and they conceded 19 fastbreak points. Yesterday, they held Boston to four.

Alvarado finished the game with six deflections, two steals, and a block. His best play came in the fourth quarter, after he missed a three-point shot. Jaylen Brown collected the rebound, and somehow, Alvarado snuck behind him and knocked the ball loose. Landry Shamet collected it at the logo and passed it back to Alvarado, who laid it up and in. It was a memorable debut for the hometown kid who grew up a Knicks fan.

“It just feels like it was meant to be,” Alvarado said. “It feels like I’ve been part of it for a while, even though it was the first game. It felt like nothing. It felt like home. It felt like it was supposed to happen this way.”

There is a reason why Leon Rose only acquired Alvarado at the deadline. Rose is, justifiably, confident that his current roster can win it all. The Pistons, whom the Knicks beat in the playoffs last year, are their Achilles heel. They seem to be the only team standing in their way, and if they earn the No. 1 seed, at least the Knicks can enter the playoffs ranked second.

If the season ended today, Boston would enter the playoffs with the No. 3 seed. The second-ranked Knicks’ domination of their Beantown rivals shows they deserve to be viewed as championship contenders. Their most recent accomplishment: Recovering from a 38-point loss to one rival with a 21-point win over another.

The Knicks had several chips on their shoulders yesterday, motivating them to win. One came from Jayson Tatum, who threatened to make his season debut on Saturday, but his bluff was quickly called. Another was that New York got to rain on Boston’s Super Bowl parade (they got some help from the Seahawks). A third chip was that Brunson got to get back at Jaylen Brown, who whined in December for losing the Eastern Conference Player of the Month award.

Chip or no chip, the Knicks knew they had to rekindle their winning ways, and they knew the impact a loss in Boston, especially after a loss in Detroit, could have on their position in the tight Eastern Conference standings. “Our group is resilient,” said head coach Mike Brown. “Sometimes, like in Detroit, that happens. None of us wants to go through it. Give Detroit a lot of credit, but we know it’s not who we are.

“We played a lot better than that [today]. We will. But, I do think this group is resilient because they’ve shown, time and time again, after tough losses or multiple losses, playing the next game, usually doing a pretty good job of playing again.”

With 10 points, a steal, and a game-high +22 rating in 26.5 minutes off the bench, Mohamed Diawara helped Alvarado hold Jaylen Brown to 26 points, three below his per-game average. Diawara, the French rookie, has blossomed into a reliable defensive bench piece in Mike Brown’s lineup.

“You get a guy like Jaylen Brown who is a heck of a player,” Mike Brown said. “In the first half, he was having his way with us a little bit. He was 6-for-11; he was rolling. In the second half, we did a better job defensively as a team. I got to give [Diawara] some credit. [He] was our defensive player of the game. We threw [Diawara] on him for a little bit. We thought we were going to try to make Jaylen work, be physical, get up into him, stuff like that, and he did it without fouling.”

Diawara’s defense is impressive, but perhaps more impressive is his ability to play a two-way game at a high pace. When the Knicks win games, they usually set the pace of play. Yesterday, Diawara defended at a high level while embodying the Knicks’ perimeter-centric offense. He shot 4-for-4 from the field, including 2-for-2 from downtown.

Another reason why the Knicks were able to dictate pace was Mitchell Robinson’s performance from the free-throw line. Toward the end of the first half, fouling Robinson became an effective strategy for Boston. But in the second half, the seven-foot center went 3-for-4 from the stripe.

The Knicks have two more games before the All-Star Break, and they will be played in back-to-back fashion. The Knicks will host Indiana tomorrow night before visiting Philadelphia on Wednesday.

Cover Image Courtesy: New York Knicks