Knicks' Jalen Brunson tries to accentuate the positive, but the reality is that the team does have its negatives
Jalen Brunson #11 of the Knicks controls the ball against the Chicago Bulls at Madison Square Garden on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025.. Credit: Jim McIsaac
In the Knicks' locker room after Sunday afternoon's game, Jalen Brunson was the first to speak. He had a message, albeit an unusual one for him.
Brunson, who not only agonizes over every defeat but even points out when a victory is hiding a problem, chose to focus not on yet another loss to one of the NBA’s elite teams or the 27-point hole the team dug itself before a cosmetic repair resulted in just a 13-point loss to the Celtics.
“Whatever we did in the first, second and fourth quarter doesn’t really matter,” Brunson said, focusing not on the hole the Knicks dug but on the rally in the third quarter that helped close the gap to four before they collapsed again. “The third quarter, what we showed was how we can play and how we can compete and how we can — I don’t really care what’s going on; the way we stepped up in the third is how we should play.”
It was an oddly optimistic take in the face of another brutal kick from reality — the reality that the Knicks have yet to show a hint that the makeover of the roster last summer has made them better than the previous incarnations that had their seasons end in the Eastern Conference semifinals. Right now, the Eastern Conference semifinals lines up the Knicks against Boston, and that is not encouraging.
The Knicks will have another shot at these measuring sticks, facing three games against Boston and Cleveland in the final seven games of the regular season. And really, the only measuring stick that matters is the postseason, when this season ultimately will be deemed a success or failure.
It’s reasonable to wait for that final verdict no matter how disheartening the results have been against the elite teams, and really even winning teams. The Knicks (37-20) not only are 0-7 against the three best teams in the NBA but are 11-14 against teams with a .500 record or better.
And even then, whatever the results of this season, it’s not out of the question to provide the excuse that this team has just come together and has yet to play even one minute as a whole. The Knicks still are in desperate need of a rim-protecting center and are crossing their fingers that Mitchell Robinson will get back in the coming days and be close to the version of himself that he was before undergoing two surgical procedures and sitting out most of the last 14 months.
So, wait until next year?
Stability and experience matter, but there are things that can be pointed to as we try to decode what the potential of this team is as assembled.
Where has it gone wrong? Obviously, the Knicks are missing Robinson and Isaiah Hartenstein — enough that one league source recently said, “How could they not have gotten a big body at the trade deadline?”
Karl-Anthony Towns has played his best with a rim-protecting center next to him, allowing him to utilize his otherworldly offensive skills while helping hide his deficiencies on the other end. It’s not just the confounding drop coverages against elite shooting teams but communication glitches on the court, with players looking to each other after the shot already has gone through the net.
But the Knicks' plans for this season had another way to cover up those deficiencies: Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby as a wing pairing to match up against the likes of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. The cost to do that was five first-round picks for Bridges, a haul that has limited the ability to do business in other deals, and a $212 million contract for Anunoby, pushing the Knicks up against the edge of the second apron. At those prices, the disappearances in key games is hard to explain.
Not only have the Knicks not delivered, but they have provided an eye test that anyone in the arena can see: They are not nearly as tough as previous versions of the team.
On paper, it’s understandable why the Knicks would go all-in on the duo, but on the court, there has been something clearly lacking in these toughest matchups. The Knicks are missing the toughness and hustle that marked the overachieving squads that Tom Thibodeau put on the floor in recent seasons. Roll through the game film of the weekend against Cleveland and Boston and it’s easy to find a half-dozen clips of the Knicks being beaten down the floor or staring as shooters fire up open shots or slide through the defense uncontested to the rim.
Even as the Knicks have put together a potent offense this season, ranked third in the league in offensive rating, Thibodeau preaches something else — defense, rebounding and low turnovers as the touchstones of a winning and consistent team.
So consider what this team has delivered.
The Knicks are third-best in the NBA in turnovers, nestled between Oklahoma City, Boston and Cleveland, but they also are 20th in defensive rating and 24th in rebounding
No help came at the trade deadline, and even offseason moves will be difficult to maneuver. So how does this get better? When does this get better?
It’s not hard to understand why Brunson would provide a glimmer of hope for everyone in that locker room, a reason to believe that they still can be what they want to be. It’s just hard to ignore all of the reality around it.
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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.
