About 90 minutes before Monday’s game, Josh Hart was answering questions from a couple of reporters. Someone asked him about the Knicks’ then 2-8 stretch.

“I think it’s a combination of stuff. Just gotta be better defensively, more physical, into the ball, more effort, more energy. That kind of stuff. I can’t say that I’m surprised because obviously January – middle of January especially – those are the kind of dog days of the season. So not too surprised,” Hart said. “You kind of see a few teams around kind of showing that fatigue. You know, it happens every year.”

Hart wasn’t excusing the Knicks’ poor play. But he didn’t sound too worried about it.

About four hours later – after the Knicks put up a no-show performance against the Mavericks – Hart had a different take on the team.

“We have to go out there with a sense of urgency,” Hart said. “At this point, (more than) 40 games in, normally you don’t put too much into struggles, because there’s highs and lows, but at this point we have to play desperate, because that’s (where) we are right now.”

Now, the Knicks have lost nine of their last 11 games. They have a bottom 5 defense in that span; New York may have hit rock bottom on that side of the ball Monday when Dallas put up 75 points in the first half.

It was one of the worst losses of the Jalen Brunson era. And one that led to a damning comparison between this year’s team and last year’s team, which reached the Eastern Conference Finals.

“I think last year no matter what we did, the effort was there. I haven’t seen this kind of effort that we had today, it was embarrassing,” Hart said.

He referenced a game last season when the Knicks leaned on effort and physicality to win.

“We didn’t shoot the ball, we couldn’t score, but we said, ‘We’re gonna lock in, and we’re gonna play defense, we’re gonna play physical, and we’re gonna make it tough.’ It’s the same group of guys, so how we’re playing right now is really inexcusable,” Hart said. “We all gotta look in the mirror and do some soul searching.”

How did the Knicks reach this point? How did a team that started the season 23-9 end up here?

In digging around on this, one theme has come up consistently over the past couple of weeks:

This group is not tied together in the way that their early season success would suggest. Players haven't fully bought into their roles under head coach Mike Brown. Those reasons are cited often when you talk to people about the Knicks’ flaws.

Now, these issues aren’t unique to this year’s team.  They existed to a degree in the locker room last season. But the Knicks coaching change hasn't rooted them out.

The firing of Tom Thibodeau and hiring of Brown was never going to cure all that ailed the Knicks. But the move definitely raised the stakes for New York. 

That was made clear earlier this month when owner James Dolan said in a WFAN interview that he expects the Knicks to reach – and win – the NBA Finals. 

A few weeks ago, Dolan’s expectations seemed reasonable. The Knicks started the season 23-9; they won the NBA Cup in Las Vegas last month.

But things have fallen apart since then.

New York is 27th in opponent three-point percentage; the club has one of the NBA’s worst defenses over the past four weeks. Karl-Anthony Towns has struggled on both ends of the floor for much of the season.

It’s easy to point the finger at the new head coach. Certainly, Brown and his staff deserve criticism for the club’s freefall.

But what about the front office? Management’s three biggest acquisitions (Towns, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby) haven’t played at a high level with any consistency this season. The 2025 free agent signings (Guerschon Yabusele, Jordan Clarkson) haven’t provided the depth the Knicks were looking for.

So how does it all get turned around? The Knicks don't have much flexibility from here. They can use draft capital and/or Miles McBride to acquire a significant rotation player. It may be tough for the Knicks to recoup value in a Yabusele trade because of his 2026-27 player option.

Sure, Leon Rose & Co can execute a larger trade. But that would mean giving up on a core that they put together two summers ago.

Would Rose and his group make that kind of move? They probably don’t want to. But more losses like Monday’s may force their hand.