Unless you’re the 73-9 Warriors or the 1990s Bulls, a midseason slump is inevitable.
Four of the last six NBA champions endured a four-game losing streak at some point. The once-unbeatable OKC Thunder have
played .500 ball for the last three weeks after starting 24-1, including getting blown out by the Charlotte Hornets with their entire Big Three healthy.
While the Knicks are encountering their first four-game skid since February 2024, last year’s team had lost six out of nine in early January and had three separate three-game losing streaks after the New Year. Very few teams avoid having bad 1-2 week stretches.
It’s what you do to get out of a slump that’s more telling than the slump itself. While the second-half collapse against the Spurs followed a different formula, each of the last three games has gone the same way:
- Competitive first quarter, Knicks trail by one after one
- Game starts to slip away in the second; Knicks keep it within 8-12 points at halftime
- Knicks get blown out in the third, eventually trailing by 18+
In the first two games, the Knicks fought back to make it look closer than it was, but the Pistons never let up. After only encountering two deficits larger than 18 points through 33 games, it’s happened in three straight.
There’s the obvious: the defense has been abhorrent for a while now. Even before this skid, the Knicks were struggling to out-talent overmatched teams and put them to bed early because of poor defensive effort. Saddiq Bey’s heater in the first quarter against the Pelicans wasn’t just a role player getting hot, it was poor defensive effort.
At this point, Bey had 15 points in under eight minutes. He hadn’t missed a shot. Why on earth did Mikal Bridges help here? Mo Diawara was being beaten off the bounce by Trey Murphy, sure, but there are multiple bodies in the paint, and Murphy isn’t known for his finishing. Yes, this is armchair analysis, but in what world is it smart to help off the hottest man in the building?
This has been a trend for the Knicks as of late. Poor defensive effort and fixable mistakes allow a player (or team) to get red hot. Take Julian Champagnie’s 11 threes on New Year’s Eve.
This one is pure miscommunication. Jordan Clarkson switches onto Wemby (lol), and either doesn’t tell OG Anunoby or OG didn’t listen. Either way, it allows a player who, despite not being the most efficient, is a ready and willing shooter to pop open. Allowing any NBA player to get into rhythm is a bad idea.
Another fundamental flaw of this defense (especially of late) is poor transition defense. Guerschon Yabusele is behind the play, sure, but so is Luke Kornet. What is Ariel Hukporti sitting in the paint for? If I were Mike Brown, I’d rather my center contest the man who’s already made six threes and force him to go off the bounce than to give him an open shot to tie the game.
Champagnie hit 3 threes in transition in the fourth quarter as the Knicks failed to match up. Their poor transition defense has been exploited all year, but teams are really torturing them now.
The screen navigation is also becoming a big issue. One thing that hasn’t changed from Tom Thibodeau to Mike Brown is drop coverage, as the Knicks don’t have the personnel to recover if their center gets blown by at the perimeter. That puts extreme importance on screen navigation, but the Knicks have gotten blown up in that department by Joel Embiid, Luke Kornet, and Isaiah Stewart in the last week, allowing shooters to walk into open shots.
The issues on defense are well established, but a concerning trend emerging is one that happened last season as well: the stagnation on offense.
In each of the last two seasons, the Knicks had a generationally good offense prior to New Year’s. Last year, the over-reliance on Josh Hart in the starting lineup led to the offense’s downfall due to a defensive adjustment. It wasn’t supposed to be like this in 2026, but it hasn’t been pretty.
For one, the team is overly relying on Brunson heroball early in games. While the Knicks’ captain is one of the league’s most prolific first-quarter scorers, he’s been able to put up points early by playing in the flow of the offense, not commanding the ball all game long. Lately, he’s operating a one-man show, which is causing stagnation in the offense. Just look at this play from November:
The ball movement and off-ball movement just aren’t there right now, and it’s killing the offense. It also doesn’t help that three of the starters are in horrific slumps:
OG Anunoby since 12/9: 14.3 PPG, 39/26/85 splits
Mikal Bridges since 12/23: 12.5 PPG, 44/33/33 splits
Karl-Anthony Towns since 12/19: 19.1 PPG, 12.3 FGA, 34.3% from 3, 1.9 assists to 2.9 turnovers, 4.0 fouls
Wingstop started the season as one of the best corner shooters in the league, but neither has been hitting for a few weeks now. Towns has had some bizarre games lately, attempting fewer shots, picking up more silly fouls, and seeing a drastic drop in his playmaking ability. His penchant for picking up offensive fouls has been especially present lately.
Teams are once again putting capable defensive wings on Towns instead of letting him dominate undersized, foul-prone bigs. The Knicks have to respond by optimizing him better. Get him better catch-and-shoot looks, minimize these top-of-the-key drives that lead to silly offensive fouls, get him on the block and let him use his strength there instead of downhill drives.
It’s a team-wide issue now. Guys aren’t moving off the ball, they aren’t passing, they’re getting predictable. The Pistons stripped the Knicks over and over again on Monday because their young, feisty defenders were able to read a predictable offense.
The Knicks have been blocked 21 times in the last two games, the most since January 2023. Their opponents have 31 steals in the last three games, the most since last February. If you combine those, it’s probably the first time in a long time that both have happened to this team.
The difference right now is effort. They’re a step late rotating, they’re not moving off the ball, they look tired out there. The grueling schedule doesn’t help, but at some point, the fewer minutes have to show up somewhere. The Knicks are a week away from their first two-day break in a while and should have Hart and Landry Shamet back in the near future.
But they can’t wait a week to figure it out.
