Knicks still plagued by slow starts, inconsistent defense
The Knicks' OG Anunoby defends against the Detroit Pistons' Cade Cunningham during the second half of an NBA game Saturday at Madison Square Garden. Credit: AP/Heather Khalifa
The Knicks lined the floor at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night with a collection of their former players, including members of the 1970 championship squad through the hard-nosed 1990s group and just about every other incarnation of the franchise’s history.
But if the current group is going to take its place in the club's history, it wasn’t going to be with nights like this one.
The Knicks hosted a struggling Detroit Pistons squad, riding a four-game winning streak against a team with a three-game losing streak. The Knicks proceeded to welcome them to the homecoming event by falling behind by double digits early. It continued a troubling trend: slow starts, playing down to the level of the competition and giving away games they should not lose.
As promising as the Knicks look on most nights — and this one at least didn’t include Karl-Anthony Towns, who sat out with patellar tendinopathy in his right knee — they have given away others, losing to sub-.500 teams Detroit, Indiana and Chicago. It happens, but how it’s happened has been troubling. The Knicks have an elite offense and an inconsistent defense.
“I think we pick and choose when,” Mikal Bridges said of the defense after Saturday’s 120-111 loss. “We ain't that good to be able to just pick when we want to play defense. I don't think any team's that good when they just pick when they want to play defense. I think it starts with me as well. Just got to be more vocal and lead by example as well. It's all of us."
“When you’re shorthanded, your margin of error is a lot tighter,” coach Tom Thibodeau said. "You’ve got to play with great intensity on every possession, and if you do that, you’re going to have a chance to win. You’re not going to replace KAT individually, and Cam [Payne], but collectively we can.
“We can play great defense, we can rebound the ball as a team and that’s what you have to do. You’re not going to rely on one guy to get you 13 rebounds, but collectively we can do it. That’s where we have to be better, we have to learn from it . . . It starts with your ball pressure, it starts with your bigs being in proper position, your shell being tight, rotating cleanly and finishing. You have to finish your defense. You have to challenge shots and you have to get the bodies.”
That’s a long answer for a short point: The effort has to be better. The Knicks have to develop a consistent defense and a consistent effort, rather than, as they have in the last three games, picking and choosing when the wakeup call will come.
“I think it started from just the beginning,” Jalen Brunson said. “The physicality from the start. You can’t give a great player [the Pistons' Cade Cunningham] confidence in the beginning, and we did it as a team. No one, it’s not one person's job to guard or whatever. It’s all five of us and we all have a part in it.”
The Knicks fell behind 13-2 at the start, gave up 39 first-quarter points and never led. They cut a 17-point third-quarter deficit to two early in the fourth quarter and then surrendered a 14-2 run as the game got out of reach again.
“Yeah, it's just, when we dig ourselves a hole like that and we’re playing from behind, it’s not easy,” Brunson said. “Yes, we cut it to two, we should’ve honestly closed it and maybe even took the lead, but like I said, you can’t give the team confidence early, and that’s what we did. And they had confidence the entire night.”
“Yeah, we just lacked energy in that first quarter,” Josh Hart said. “We didn't come out aggressive, physical, not great. Just got to be better. There have been a couple of lows in the first quarter that we got to get fixed. We can't always try to dig ourselves out of a hole.”
Was the lesson learned? The Knicks will face a 7-17 Raptors squad in Toronto on Monday night before heading home to play Atlanta in the quarterfinals of the NBA Cup. If the Knicks aren’t ready from the opening tip on Monday, you can be sure that RJ Barrett will have something to show his former team.
It won’t take long to tell. The game starts at 7:30. We’ll see if the Knicks are ready to start at that time, too.
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
