It’s over.
The Knicks have finally completed the final gauntlet on their regular-season schedule. Beginning on February 4 with a double-overtime victory against Denver, the Knicks played 16 games, with 12 against teams in playoff position. The 34-day stretch saw the team face Detroit and Denver twice, San Antonio, Boston, Cleveland, Philly, Houston, Toronto, and both LA teams. The soft games on the schedule? Indiana, Chicago, and Milwaukee. It wasn’t fun.
Ultimately, with the team not having much time
to pick themselves off the mat after the three-week nightmare stretch, going 9-7 isn’t bad, even if the last stretch gave you a sour taste in your mouth. There were big highs and devastating lows, but ultimately, they survived. They now look forward to the softest eight-game stretch of the season as a reward.
But what can we learn from getting a look at essentially every good team the NBA has to offer over the last month?
The Knicks defensive renaissance is real
I talked about this in my potential jinx piece on Sunday (0-2 since, whoops), but the Knicks have held some extremely good offenses under wraps since the players-only meeting after the MLK Day beatdown against Dallas. They suffocated San Antonio, held OKC to 103 points, ran the Tatum-less Celtics out of the TD Garden, and smoked the Nuggets in Denver.
The defense did have two sub-standard games against the Lakers and Clippers in a brutal back-to-back, but there are caveats. For one, the defense started strong against the Lakers and even held a high-octane offense without a bucket for over seven minutes in the first half (albeit still giving up points on free throws). In the Monday night defeat at the Intuit Dome, the team’s 20 turnovers shot themselves in the foot just as much as the poor perimeter defense.
You want one stat that encompasses the defensive turnaround?
Before NYE: 36.9 opponent 3pt% (T-21st), 39.7 opponent 3PA/G (25th)
12/31 to 1/19: 39.5 opponent 3pt% (T-28th), 37.3 opponent 3PA/G (T-15th)
Since 1/20: 31.7 opponent 3pt% (1st), 37.4 opponent 3PA/G (19th)
The Knicks gave up a lot of threes to start the year, and up until MLK Day, was frequently fire-bombed from outside. The pendulum has since swung the other way with better shooting luck (wide-open% has dropped from 38.8% to 32.7% on similar attempts), but the team has also played much better defense with their rotations.
Detroit remains a matchup problem. The others? Not so much
Two of the seven losses came to the Detroit Pistons, a team that has had the Knicks’ number in a way very similar to the Celtics in 2024-25. We know how that ended, so there’s hope, but there are stylistic concerns. Detroit’s physicality gives the Knicks fits in the same way Orlando did early in the season to muck games up. Add in some ridiculous shooting splits from a team not known for 3-point shooting and, yeah.
But no other team has appeared to be this stylistic mismatch. The Knicks are 2-1 against the Celtics, and even with Jayson Tatum back and looking good off a torn Achilles, the team has confidence from beating a superior Celtics team last year. They’re also 2-1 against Cleveland, which, despite the loss coming since the James Harden trade, doesn’t have me too concerned, given just how cold the Knicks were that night. Don’t even get me started on Philly and Toronto.
Out West, you have to be impressed at how the Knicks have played against the Spurs and Nuggets this season. If Julian Champagnie doesn’t put up the best shooting performance of his life on New Year’s Eve, they’re 5-0 on the two biggest threats to the reigning champions in the West. Speaking of the reigning champs, the Knicks played well without Mitchell Robinson and nearly took OKC to overtime on the second night of a back-to-back.
They can compete with almost everyone, but will that translate when the games start to truly matter?
Fatigue became a factor late
Two of the Knicks’ sloppiest games came on the back-to-back in Los Angeles. Considering the travel schedule, it makes sense.
39 combined turnovers and sub-30% from three isn’t great. Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson did great on Monday night, but the role players vanished. The defense was a step slow, the offense was a tick off, and it was just pure sloppiness. Considering the circumstances, I’ll give them grace. Just don’t do this in Utah on Tuesday.
New York’s starters aren’t working
Yep, we’re having this conversation again.
In 155 minutes in the 16-game gauntlet, the starting five played 155 minutes and had a minus-3.5 net rating. In March, it’s a catastrophically bad minus-17.2 in 80 minutes. Injuries to Deuce McBride and the occasional absence of Mitchell Robinson have reduced lineup versatility, but when a lineup just isn’t working like this one isn’t, you need to consider something different.
Granted, if Landry Shamet is going to shoot the way he did Monday and teams employ Spurs-like ghost coverage to force Mo Diawara to beat you, your options are limited. Whenever McBride returns, he needs to get more reps with the Core Four. The 130 defensive rating that they have together is deceptive due to the 11-game stretch of hell.
Stat of the day: Brunson-Towns lineups have a 103.8 defensive rating since January 20.
The Big Bodega is back
I’m generally not nearly as much of a pessimist as some people who talk Knicks, but I have been especially irked at times this season over the play of Karl-Anthony Towns. After all, a guy who was once one of the best offensive big men the league has ever seen was unable to put the ball in the basket for months.
Well, despite relatively low usage, Towns has played some of his best and most efficient basketball in the Knicks’ toughest stretch.
In the 16-game gauntlet, Towns averaged a modest 20.7 points and 12.6 rebounds. The difference? His efficiency. He entered the 2OT win over Denver, shooting 46.1% from the field and 35.9% from three on the season for a 59.1 TS%.
Where’s he been since? 59.2% from the field, 41.2% from three, and 68.9 TS%. His usage actually went down in that stretch, so it seems that KAT is doing a better job at letting the game come to him and not forcing things. The ultimate question, though, is whether the Knicks can win with Towns doing this rather than being the 25-10 monster he’s capable of being.
That said, efficient basketball against some of the best the NBA has to offer is extremely encouraging. Despite playing in a back-to-back, Towns had his best game of the season on Monday, dropping 35/12/7 on an undersized Clippers team that only had 37-year-old Brook Lopez and Isaiah Jackson to defend him.
Jalen Brunson needs some rest
Brunson looked as good as he has all season against the Clippers on Monday night, but he has badly struggled lately against some physical defenses in a brutal, condensed schedule.
The captain’s stats all around have been down since he tweaked his ankle in January and rushed his way back to try and stop the bleeding. Great basketball from Anunoby and Towns has masked it at times, but the head of the snake is struggling.
There’s an upcoming stretch where the Knicks face the Wizards and Nets in their only two games in seven days. Resting Brunson for load management might be the best call. If you need him to beat two teams trying to lose, we have bigger issues.
Adam Silver is a cruel scheduler
The Knicks just finished a five-game stretch in seven days, traveling from Toronto to New York to Denver to Los Angeles. They traveled across international borders at 3 AM, went through customs, and were greeted by the reigning champions. They played the third game in four nights in Denver, a scientifically hard place to play due to the altitude. They then played a back-to-back in the City of Angels.
That’s bad enough given the strength of the opponents, but get this: In a span of six days, the Knicks played Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, and Kawhi Leonard. You can make the case that all four will make the All-NBA First-Team if they play 65 games. What a rough week.
