The Brooklyn Nets and New York Knicks will meet at Madison Square Garden on Monday night, with the Knicks looking to get back to their championship caliber after four losses in their first six games. They’ve been off since Friday, so they certainly have the edge situationally against their cross-town foe. The Nets played in Indianapolis Sunday night, finally snapping their season-opening losing streak at five. That said, Tyrese Haliburton didn’t play, so that version of the Pacers is a much, much different team than the Knicks.
Coming off their first win of the season and playing their second game in consecutive nights, the move is to go against the Nets on Monday. The spread is massive, but this has “get-right spot” written all over it for the Knicks. Not to mention, the Nets represent a decent step down in competition level compared to the rest of the teams the Knicks have played to this point.
Brooklyn has played in one back-to-back situation this year, and they lost the second game by 27 points at home. Now on the road against a superior opponent that hasn’t played since Friday, I don’t see how the Nets overcome their defensive inefficiencies and lack of depth against the champs.
Nets vs Knicks prediction: NY Knicks -14.5 (-110) at the time of publishing. Playable to -15.
