barely squeaked out a victory<\/a>.<\/p>\nAt its best, New York\u2019s defense is menacing. Mitchell Robinson isn\u2019t just a rim protector; he\u2019s also become one of the league\u2019s best pick-and-roll defenders, capable of guarding a driver with one arm while taking away a potential pass to a roller with the other. OG Anunoby is a disruptor. Mikal Bridges has been solid, sometimes elite, guarding facilitators and has been special away from the basketball. The Knicks finish possessions. They\u2019re one of the NBA\u2019s best rebounding squads.<\/p>\n
But with the organization cautious with Robinson\u2019s ankle, the backbone of the defense is usually not on the court. Whether he\u2019s around or not, offenses infiltrate the middle too easily, which creates 3s. The results have been mixed.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, the Knicks look like title contenders. Sometimes, they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
For now, they\u2019re a Rorschach test. You\u2019ll see whatever your brain tricks you into seeing.<\/p>\n
What is a stat you find interesting, good or bad?<\/p>\n
Edwards: I led with love, so I\u2019ll be a bit of a grinch here.<\/p>\n
The Knicks\u2019 defense ranked 17th in the NBA as of their last game. On the surface, that\u2019s not good, but it\u2019s not terrible. However, when you dig a bit deeper, there is reason to be concerned.<\/p>\n
New York has a bottom-half defense and has played 13 of its 15 games against offenses that rank 12th or worse. Nine of those games were against offenses that ranked 18th or worse (again, as of Saturday night).<\/p>\n
In short, the Knicks\u2019 defense is below average against below-average or worse offenses. That is worth biting your nails over.<\/p>\n
The team gives up a lot of 3s, and teams shoot efficiently on those 3s. Last week, the Mavericks \u2014 who don\u2019t shoot a lot of 3s or make a lot of 3s \u2014 took 44 3s against New York and made 36 percent of those shots. The Magic, another team that doesn\u2019t shoot the 3-ball well, hit 39 percent of their attempts over the weekend.<\/p>\n
New York, with or without injuries to key players, has struggled mightily with its on-ball defense. The pick-and-roll defense fails with communication at times. Brown\u2019s shift\/gap-help defense has done a good job of keeping teams out of the paint (outside of the latest game against Orlando), but rival teams have been comfortable all season kicking out to 3-point shooters and shooting contested or uncontested 3s with unbothered confidence. Opponents step into a lot of warm-up 3s against New York.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve got real concerns about the defense and its ability to guard the ball. I\u2019ve got concerns about the size of the backcourt and the backline defense when Robinson isn\u2019t on the floor.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-2212651926-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Mitchell Robinson\u2019s size and defense has been a huge asset for the Knicks this season. (Sarah Stier \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
If the defense doesn\u2019t improve tremendously, the offense must be unstoppable for the Knicks to win a championship.<\/p>\n
Katz: I will add to James\u2019 point with a more specific statistic: 1.047. That\u2019s how many points the Knicks\u2019 defense allows per drive this season. Any shot, pass, drawn foul or turnover directly out of a drive counts toward that number, which ranks 21st in the league.<\/p>\n
The scheme is supposed to take away the lane to the basket. Brown builds his defenses from the paint out \u2014 and it\u2019s working. The Knicks don\u2019t give up many shots around the hoop. But they aren\u2019t bothering ballhandlers, especially big wings who like to bolt to the bucket, such as the Magic\u2019s Franz Wagner, who annihilated them Saturday.<\/p>\n
They foul too often or get caught out of position in those scenarios. The scheme calls for defenders on the perimeter to sink into the lane and cut off drivers, then to hustle out to primary assignments to take away jump shots. The Knicks know they will give up 3-pointers in bunches. They\u2019re willing to live with that. An NBA defense can\u2019t take away everything. Even the Oklahoma City Thunder, whose defensive efficiency looks like an ERA, allows droves of corner 3s. Like OKC, the Knicks choose paint defense as their main mission.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s too common that their help from the perimeter is unrefined.<\/p>\n
Anunoby injuring his hamstring makes life far more difficult. The shifting James mentioned, the way off-ball defenders wade into the lane at opportune moments, accentuates Anunoby\u2019s and Bridges\u2019 greatest skills. They\u2019re long, quick and instinctual. The strategy is built around them. If one of them \u2014 especially the guy who is the top perimeter stopper on the squad \u2014 goes down for an extended period, the Knicks look worse.<\/p>\n
But at the moment, whether Anunoby is present or not, whether Robinson is on the bench because of a minutes restriction or because it\u2019s the second night of a back-to-back, the Knicks aren\u2019t always cohesive.<\/p>\n
Every once in a while, Brunson, while he\u2019s hiding on a standstill shooter, will drift too far toward the basket, then be too late on a closeout. Or, Towns will end up in the wrong spot while defending the back end of a screen, which allows a dribbler a clear path. The Knicks are willing to concede 3s, but they have to be the right 3s. The ones that come after these types of mistakes are not the right 3s.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll provide an important caveat: It is early. After half a decade of running the same stuff, the Knicks are learning to work within a new environment.<\/p>\n
They switch up their defensive strategies more than they did under Tom Thibodeau. Watching them test out a zone against the Heat felt like a fever dream, even while knowing most of Miami\u2019s opponents zone up that group\u2019s screen-less, scrambling offense. The Knicks have run 70 possessions of zone defense so far this season, per Second Spectrum. In five years under Thibodeau, they ran 16 total.<\/p>\n
The team had barely practiced the one Brown implemented against the Heat, but he wanted to try it. Brown is experimenting, which can lead to results that are not always indicative of what\u2019s to come.<\/p>\n
Speaking of which \u2026<\/p>\n
What are your thoughts on Mike Brown so far?<\/p>\n
Edwards: I like the job he\u2019s done.<\/p>\n
A coach can\u2019t put the ball in the basket for his players, but he can create an offense that generates good looks. The Knicks have done that.<\/p>\n
New York still isn\u2019t playing fast, but it\u2019s playing faster and with more movement than it did last season.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, I feel like Brown has instilled confidence in players like Landry Shamet, who may miss some significant time after injuring his shoulder over the weekend, and Jordan Clarkson \u2014 two players who could swing a playoff series.<\/p>\n
Brown\u2019s got to figure out the defense, given some of the limitations on that end of the floor with this roster. He\u2019s got to help find a way to get Towns going.<\/p>\n
Brown was thrown into a tough situation: coaching a team that just made the Eastern Conference finals and publicly declared anything short of a championship isn\u2019t good enough. The record might be identical after 15 games to last season\u2019s, but I do watch this team and see a vision offensively. Defensively, again, there\u2019s still a lot of work to do.<\/p>\n
Katz: Brown receives an incomplete \u2014 and given his lean into experimentation, I bet he would agree with that.<\/p>\n
We know the concepts Brown values today. He wants the Knicks to play fast, not just on the break but also with pace in the half court. He wants cutting and an egalitarian system in which the best shot isn\u2019t for the stars but for the open man. He wants to take away shots at the basket. The way he will implement it, as well as who he relies on most in moments that matter, is still a question mark.<\/p>\n
Brown is running tests all over \u2014 with lineups, with X\u2019s and O\u2019s, with who he trusts late in games.<\/p>\n
Last week, during a narrow loss in Miami, Miles \u201cDeuce\u201d McBride ran more offense than he had all season. McBride may be the size of a point guard, but his habits over the years have been those of an off-ball wing. Now, he\u2019s speeding on full-court drives more than ever. With Brunson out against the Heat, McBride headed more of the attack than the norm.<\/p>\n
By the end of the game, with the Knicks down a point, McBride was the guy who had to make a play against Miami pest Davion Mitchell, who stuck with the 24-year-old and forced him into an uncomfortable, possibly ill-advised midrange shot. Seconds later, McBride missed another shot, a floater on one of those long-runway drives that fell short.<\/p>\n
The Knicks lost, but that was a learning experience for McBride. If he\u2019s in a pinch and wedged into a similar situation later in the season or even during the playoffs, maybe going through those end-of-game moments on a night when he otherwise played well, going for 25 points, helps.<\/p>\n
Brown has been accountable. He admits when something doesn\u2019t work, then moves on to another venture. Early in the season, Josh Hart couldn\u2019t catch a rhythm. He went to Brown, told his coach that he was routine-oriented, that he would be more comfortable if he knew when his minutes were coming. Brown added consistency to Hart\u2019s role immediately. Hart knows when he will enter games and when he will leave them, and he generally understands that won\u2019t change. Now, he looks like himself again.<\/p>\n
Not every strategy has to work in the first 15 games. Brown just has to find the ones that do by spring. So far, he\u2019s shown he\u2019s willing to self-correct.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No matter the coach, the New York Knicks continue to hook people in and then take them on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,1666,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-305405","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-new-york-knicks","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}