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New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns defends Denver Nuggets center...

New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns defends Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic in the second half of an NBA basketball game at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke

When the Knicks had finished off another impressive win Wednesday night, this one a solid performance against the Denver Nuggets and Nikola Jokic, it seemed as if they’d continued to open eyes around the league.

“They’re playing really well,” said Jokic, who knows of what he speaks as a three-time MVP and an NBA champion. “They’re well-coached, they’re pushing the pace and in the halfcourt, they know what they’re doing, so they’re a really good team. I think they are the favorites — not the favorites, but I think top-five candidates for the title.”

Maybe it’s nothing new. The 122-112 win, the Knicks’ fifth straight, didn’t change their place in the standings, as they still reside in third place in the Eastern Conference and fourth among championship odds. And the Knicks already had beaten Denver this season, a more one-sided performance on the road in November, so why now?

Ask the Knicks and they’ll tell you the team after 48 games and 32 wins is different from the team they put on display that night in Denver, the 17th game of the season, and after the 11th game, when they were 5-6, and Game 1, when they were blown out in Boston.

The offense has piled up 408 points in the last three games, the highest total for any three-game stretch in franchise history. But to a man, they point to defense as the change.

Tom Thibodeau’s teams historically get better as the season wears on, and it has been the case in nearly each of his seasons in New York. Remember two years ago, when the Knicks were 10-13 and heading out on a brutal West Coast trip with rumors of a coaching change beginning to circulate? They put together eight straight wins and went to the second round of the playoffs, the first step in this newly acquired status as a contender.

“I don’t want to talk about the future,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “I want to talk about the present. I want to talk about right now and be the best team we can be because I have a lot of experience. If you can take care of the present, the future will take care of itself.”

Maybe the best sign of their status is that in the present, they find themselves being criticized in some corners even as they rise.

Golden State’s Draymond Green was posting criticism in real time of Towns’ defense on Jokic, even though the Knicks certainly are in a better position right now than Green’s team and the Knicks’ strategy on that end of the floor limited Jokic to 17 points and 6-for-15 shooting.

On the “Run It Back” podcast, former NBA champion Danny Green criticized the minutes played by the starters and warned of injuries derailing the Knicks, noting “I think most people, in their minds, anyway, look at them as a really good team, just top-heavy ... And the biggest concern is the minutes, you know. Everybody’s waiting for that other shoe to drop.”

You can pick apart the flaws on the team and there are fair criticisms, although a major injury would stagger any contending team. The Knicks’ bench is not as deep as it has been. They are a week from the Feb. 6 trade deadline and, even though they’ve usually made moves far ahead of the deadline, they are scouring the league for depth help that won’t push them into the second luxury tax apron.

But the Knicks — neither the players nor Thibodeau — aren’t looking ahead. A long look ahead for Thibodeau means the scouting video for the next opponent, the Lakers, on Saturday night.

Thibodeau repeats over and over — and his players do, too — the need to focus on just getting better day by day. It may sound tedious, but it’s something they’ve done every season.

And it’s something that some like Jokic have seen. Maybe Draymond Green has, too, and that’s why the Knicks are on his radar. The Knicks? They are trying to ignore the good and the bad voices.

“It’s a good win and we don’t want to get carried away with ourselves,” Thibodeau said on Wednesday. “We’ll enjoy it. But there are things that we have to continue to improve upon.

“I think these are all good tests for us because it tells us exactly where we are and what we have to work on to get better and not to be satisfied and always have the belief that we can do things better, and I believe this team does. We have a committed group that’s willing to sacrifice for each other and play for each other. When that happens, good stuff comes from that.”

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