New York Knicks must learn this valuable lesson if they want to contend in future

New York Knicks must learn this valuable lesson if they want to contend in future

Last summer, the New York Knicks risked most of their future for two seismic moves: Acquiring Mikal Bridges from crosstown Brooklyn before adding Karl-Anthony Towns from Minnesota right before training camp.

Those moves were expected to make them instant Eastern Conference contenders. For the majority of 2024-25, they were in the hunt, but still on the outside-looking-in on the teams viewed as the premier contenders: Boston, Cleveland and Oklahoma City.

After four dismal regular losses to their nearby rival, New York unseated Boston in the Eastern Conference semifinals, advancing to the conference for the first time this century. However, their celebration was short-lived, losing in six games to the Indiana Pacers.

While there were plenty of reasons why New York got sent home, if they want to be taken seriously as contenders in the future, they have to learn one valuable lesson.

It’s near-impossible to win an NBA Title if your best players are poor defenders:

The New York Knicks finished the season as the league’s No. 13 defense, sandwiched in between the Milwaukee Bucks and, well, the Pacers.

While both Indiana’s (a top-10 unit since Jan. 1) and New York’s defenses have been formidable units at multiple points this postseason, the Knicks’ two best players–Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns–were relentlessly attacked in the East Finals, putting a sizable chink in the Knicks’ armor.

In all fairness, not all of these baskets were created equally, but the end goal was the same: Put Brunson and/or Towns in actions, and make them defend. Make them guard their yard and get stops.

Well, they didn’t.

The goal is always to create as many advantages as you can in a given possession to put yourself in the best position to score. That’s exactly what Indiana, namely Tyrese Haliburton, did throughout the series.

Bridges and OG Anunoby aren’t slouches defensively, but they weren’t able to make up for the deficiencies that Towns and Brunson presented when the Pacers were mismatch hunting.

Brunson is small, isn’t physical at the point-of-attack–unlike Andrew Nembhard, who had his way with Brunson in Game 6, and T.J. McConnell–and is a poor screen navigator. Towns doesn’t have the foot speed, hand activity, body positioning or mental acuity to be a good drop defender, either.

You need to have a very good defense to win a title. The phrase, “defense wins championships,” wasn’t born out of left field. All but two champions over the last two decades were top-10 defenses, and only five of those other 18 champions were outside the top-5 defensively.

If you have any below-average defenders, or “weak links,” they have to punch above their weight class to survive. New York’s two pillars had too many cracks to withstand Indiana’s battering ram.

Is Tom Thibodeau’s job safe with Knicks?

The most recent NBA champion that you could possibly point to having their two-best players be “weak links” is the 2022-23 Denver Nuggets. Though my push back is that neither Nikola Jokic nor Jamal Murray were bad defenders during their championship run. Towns and Brunson were objectively bad defensively during the East Finals. Combined, the gap between Jokic/Murray and Brunson/Towns was also big enough offensively to mask their shortcomings on the other end.

Any way you slice the pie, you need strong, physical individual defenders and disruptive team defenders to survive when the calendar turns to May and June.

Tom Thibodeau also did a bad job of maximizing his team’s offense, but that’s a different discussion for a different day.

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