All the Knicks wanted for Christmas was a bench and they got one

The Knicks’ bench just won them a game — and they did it with two key players out of the rotation.

Call it a Christmas Day unwrapping of the biggest gift given to these Knicks for the 2025-26 NBA season. Yes, hiring Mike Brown has changed the way this team operates on both ends of the floor. But signing Jordan Clarkson, bumping up Tyler Kolek and moving Mitchell Robinson into a reserve role have been defining roster moves for a Knicks team that moved up to a 21-9 record with Thursday’s victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Clarkson scored 25 points on 9-of-17 shooting from the field and 5-of-10 shooting from deep, Kolek had yet another breakout game — 16 points and nine assists on four-of-five shooting from three — and Robinson dominated the game without scoring a point, his 13 rebounds in 17 minutes making small children out of a Cavaliers front court configured to profile as super-sized.

Robinson recorded eight offensive rebounds, including four O-boards in a two-minute stretch that generated nine second-chance points off threes to help turn a 17-point fourth-quarter Cleveland lead into a single-digit ball game in crunch time.

The Knicks’ bench tied Cavaliers at 46 points apiece.

“They change the game. When I was younger, I tried to change the game when I came in off the bench,” said Jalen Brunson. “No matter what was going on, I had to change the pace, I had to get us going, I had to do something to make sure we weren’t playing the same or get us back in the game regardless of what we were doing.

“Tyler’s doing that, Jordan’s been a vet, been around for a long time. He does that every time he’s on the court. And Mitch is being who he is. He just impacts basketball, and so he’s always gonna be impacting the game as well. It’s all about them coming in and changing the game, and that’s their mindset and what they come in and do every single time.”

The bench production is a holiday miracle given the struggles of years past. Last season, the Knicks ranked dead-last in bench scoring averaging just over 20 points from its reserves per game.

This season, the Knicks still rank among league’s worst-scoring benches, sitting 28th out of 30 NBA teams, so third-to-last. But they are outscoring the 2024-25 bench by nearly 10 points per game.

Head coach Mike Brown said veteran forward Josh Hart challenged the second unit to look to score.

“One of the things Josh said was: ‘Young guys and guys coming off the bench, when we as starters don’t have it going, you guys have to uplift us, too. ou guys gotta hold us accountable, too, and when you get your opportunity, be aggressive,’” Brown recalled after the victory. “‘And our bench was fantastic. Our bench basically won the game for us. They put us in position down the stretch where a guy like Jalen, who’s one of the frontrunners for MVP in this league, can go show everybody why he is that.”

The Knicks sorely needed their bench on Thursday. Maybe they took the Christmas Eve festivities a bit too far. Or maybe they just didn’t have the energy for a matinee, 12 noon tipoff at The Garden.

But there they were: down 18-3 at the 6:42 mark of the first quarter, down 38-23 at the end of the second quarter and facing a 17-point hole with 10:26 left in the fourth quarter.

Donovan Mitchell finished with 34 loud points, including 10 of the Cavaliers’ first 18 on the board, and Darius Garland added 20 points for Cleveland, as the Knicks struggled to stay in front of shifty guards all night.

The Knicks, however, responded: They lost the first quarter by 15 but won the second by 17 to take a two-point lead into the half. They then lost the third quarter, 38-24, before running away with a 42-28 final period.

The Knicks trailed by 14 or more at four different junctures of their Christmas Day showing. They rallied back to put Brunson in position to cap the game down the stretch. The captain finished with 34 points on 10-of-25 shooting from the field and 6-of-12 shooting from downtown.

“It’s about competitive spirit,” Brown said. “There were a handful of times we could have thrown the towel in, and our guys didn’t.”

The Knicks could also have some good injury news on the horizon, though they have new questions to answer after Josh Hart limped off the floor with an apparent ankle injury after stepping on Dean Wade’s foot on a transition possession in the second half. Hart could be on the injury report for some time after he intentionally fouled to check himself out of the Christmas Day game, then gingerly walked directly to the locker room.

But Miles McBride is on pace to make a return from his ankle sprain sooner than later, and Landry Shamet continued to work through the shoulder sprain that sidelined him early into a breakout season under Brown in New York. The only question mark remains Guerschon Yabusele, the free agent who is outside of the team’s rotation despite being signed using the Knicks’ biggest-available salary cap exception (the mid-level).

That is a problem for another day. Christmas is for giving thanks and unwrapping new gifts, and the Knicks were gifted a new-and-improved bench capable of keeping the team in or flat-out winning games when the starters come up short.

“We challenged the bench to be there for when the starters ever need them and that they’ve always gotta be prepared for the moment,” said Karl-Anthony Towns. “And tonight they were. This was a team win. It was a great team win.”