Knicks are talented, but there's yearning for old tough-guys squad
Knicks guard Jalen Brunson looks on late in the fourth quarter against the Cleveland Cavaliers in an NBA basketball game at Madison Square Garden on Friday, April 11, 2025. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The Knicks’ problems are easy to point to and dissect right now. But maybe the biggest problem isn’t what you see now as the Knicks ready for the start of the postseason.
The problem is that fans, and perhaps also the Knicks, haven’t gotten over their ex.
Admit it. You still have a longing in your heart for the one that got away, the Knicks team that was in place last season once they swung the deal for OG Anunoby, who joined Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo and the parts that still remain in place. And you knew that on any night, you might end up dancing in the streets, hugging people you’d never met before. What would you give to hear some overly excited or inebriated fan screaming “bing bong” on 7th Avenue again?
Like someone checking Facebook to see what their old girlfriend is looking like now, you saw DiVincenzo in the middle of a fight with the Detroit Pistons, standing up to the hard-nosed young players trying to create Bad Boys 2.0, and you swooned. You were thinking about the good times that fell apart. First in a procession of injuries and then in a decision to go all-in on a talent upgrade in the offseason.
The decision was understandable. The Knicks were attempting to maximize the window for the prime of Brunson by surrounding him with more talent. But there was something about that old team that is missing in this current squad and is easy to spot. It is revealed by their record against the NBA’s best teams. They are 0-10 against Cleveland, Boston and Oklahoma City and 15-23 against teams with winning records.
“Obviously, we have to be better,” Brunson said after the Knicks backed into securing the third seed in the Eastern Conference despite taking their third straight loss Friday. “To make it short and sweet, we have to be better.”
With the playoff seeding set, the Knicks know they will face the Pistons in the opening round. They will face a team with the same sort of overachieving toughness they used to possess before they went for the shiny new thing.
Cade Cunningham is an All-NBA talent and around him there are role players, enforcers and hard-working players who brought the team from 14 wins a year ago to 44 with one game left. It’s sort of like what had Knicks fans celebrating as the Tom Thibodeau-led squad went from decades of misery to a contender by outworking opponents every night.
It’s easy to point a finger at the coach, the fashionable thing. Former championship or Coach of the Year winners Mike Malone, Taylor Jenkins and Mike Brown have taken the hit for their teams’ issues this season. But it’s also a reality that the toughest figures on the Knicks right now might be the coach and the point guard.
This incarnation of the Knicks certainly is more talented in the starting lineup, but they not only don’t outwork opponents every night but rarely do it for 48 minutes in a single night. When the Pistons beat them up in Detroit on Thursday, it was easy to point to the Knicks sitting three rotation pieces. But it also was hard to ignore how the Pistons played, their willingness to go nose-to-nose with the Knicks and challenge them.
“That’s a good young team,” Josh Hart said. “We know the type of brand of basketball that they play, so we have to go out there and not just match their physicality, but we’ve got to exceed it.”
That is easier said than done. And it’s worth wondering if the Knicks actually have it in them.
“I’m always confident in this group,” Hart said. “At the end of the day, playoff basketball is totally different than the regular season. Everyone starts at 0-0. Everything else is outside noise. We’ve got to focus on the guys we have in this locker room. Doing what it takes to succeed as a team, not just as individuals, and execute it. And I think we have the character of guys to do that. Our character will be tested next week.”
After beating them in their first encounter of the season, the Knicks have lost three straight games to the Pistons. Maybe that means nothing. Three rotation players sat out Thursday, and you can point to the schedule or whatever excuse you want. But you can’t deny what the Pistons have done this season under J.B. Bickerstaff. It is not just echoing the play of the old Bad Boys Pistons teams, but also what Detroit has done against a team that knocked his Cleveland Cavaliers out of the playoffs two years ago by outmuscling them in the opening round.
“Obviously, Thibs is a great coach,” Bickerstaff said. “His strategy, the way that he gets his guys to compete, defend, all those things. His ability to take away your first strength and the first option of what you’re trying to do is high level.
“This team is a completely different team than we had in Cleveland. Just the stylistic thing. I like our chances, period, with anybody just because the way we compete, the way they scrap. Again, it’s going to take some time for our guys to experience things. But I think we’re built for playoff basketball. But you’ve still got to find that experience in all that.”
While the Pistons are in the postseason for the first time since 2019, they do have experience, not just with the playoffs, but with the Knicks. Bickerstaff coached that Cavs team against them two years ago. Tobias Harris and Paul Reed were part of the Philadelphia squad that the Knicks beat last season.
After they beat the Knicks on Thursday, Pistons rookie Ron Holland, who triggered the fight with DiVincenzo and the Timberwolves, said, “I think whoever we play in the playoffs, it’s going to be feisty. That’s just how we play. We bring that Detroit Bad Boys, that Detroit grit to every single game that we play, and if New York is the team that we end up playing, we’re going to bring it every night.
“[Pistons basketball means] 48 minutes of playing hard, and I feel like when we play hard, we’re at our all-time high, and that’s if the ball is going in or not. If we are competing at a high level, all of the other stuff will work out. We know if we [are] guarding the ball, locked in on defense, eventually the offense will end up coming. We kind of hang our hat on our defense for sure.”
The Knicks used to do that. Now they have to prove they can do it again or there may be another breakup on the way.
Towns gives back
Before the Knicks' home finale, Towns met and surprised Long Island's Calvin Mar, a Knicks fan affiliated with Garden of Dreams partner Children’s Village, with a $60,000 college scholarship. Mar lost his father in 2016, connecting with Towns, who lost his mother to COVID. After the game, Towns also gave him a game-worn and signed jersey.
Knicks alum takes job
Kyle O’Quinn, who played three seasons for the Knicks, officially retired from pro basketball this week after most recently playing in China. He has accepted a job at his college, Norfolk State, to serve as executive director of athletic advancement.
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.
