Halfway through the 2024-25 season, the New York Knicks are 26-15. It’s the first time since Mike Woodson was on the sidelines and Jason Kidd was running point — and only the second time since the 27-year-old OG Anunoby was born — that their record has been this good as this juncture. Thanks largely to the addition of Karl-Anthony Towns, who will likely start in the All-Star Game, they have the second-best offense in the NBA.
Jalen Brunson has been slightly more efficient than he was in his first All-NBA season, and New York’s point differential (+7.9 per 100 possessions in non-garbage-time minutes, according to Cleaning The Glass), historically a better predictor of playoff success than winning percentage, ranks fourth, behind the Oklahoma City Thunder, Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics.
Lately, though, the Knicks have not played like they’re in the same class as those teams. Since a comfortable win over the Utah Jazz on New Year’s Day, they’ve lost five of seven games. They’ve allowed 118.4 points per 100 possessions in that stretch, 123.3 per 100 in the five losses. After one loss at Madison Square Garden, during which they were booed off the floor at halftime, Mikal Bridges described their defensive performance as “very boo-worthy.” After another, Josh Hart said they were “losing games I feel like we shouldn’t be losing.” In fairness, Towns missed one of the losses because of knee pain. But their opponents that night, the Orlando Magic, were missing their four top scorers.
The Magic game was an anomaly because New York was terrible offensively. Generally speaking, these Knicks can score with anybody. The problem is that their defense is wobbly. This is most obvious against teams with lots of firepower — on the season, they’re 2-7 against teams with top-10 offenses, and they’ve surrendered a league-worst 125.2 points per 100 possessions in those games, per Cleaning The Glass.
Last Friday, Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander cooked them for 39 points in three quarters, but the most telling possession might have been when he was on the bench and New York completely botched its stack pick-and-roll coverage, leaving a red-hot Isaiah Joe open for 3:
As constructed, the Knicks have defensive limitations. Brunson isn’t getting any taller, and Towns isn’t about to turn into Bam Adebayo. For a Tom Thibodeau-coached team, though, they’ve been making errors of execution at an alarming rate. In Monday’s loss to the Detroit Pistons, here’s Tobias Harris walking into a wide-open 3 because Anunoby switched and Towns didn’t:
And here’s Jalen Duren getting an open dunk because Marcus Sasser beat Cameron Payne off the dribble, Towns helped and Anunoby didn’t help the helper:
Throughout the game, Cade Cunningham was extremely comfortable targeting Towns in pick-and-rolls, and a variety of Pistons found clean pull-ups that way. In crunch time, though, Cunningham went at Brunson on two consecutive possessions. Both times, the Knicks put two on the ball, got in scramble mode and surrendered corner 3s to Malik Beasley. He cashed them, then did a shimmy and blew kisses to the crowd.
Over the course of an 82-game season, a rough patch isn’t necessarily a big deal. Halfway through this one, though, what is New York’s signature win? The blowout against the Milwaukee Bucks this past Sunday was encouraging, but it was sandwiched between the OKC and Detroit losses and the Bucks have been pretty underwhelming themselves. Back in November, Anunoby played the game of his life in a dominant win in Denver; maybe that’s the one. If I were making the case that the Knicks are contenders, I might actually point to a loss: for the first three quarters of their game in Oklahoma City on Jan. 3, they appeared to be in control (before they were outscored 37-19 in the fourth).
I came away from that game, though, thinking that New York was incomplete. All five of its starters logged 40-plus minutes, and, with Miles McBride sidelined, the Knicks went with an eight-man rotation. The Thunder, even without Chet Holmgren and Alex Caruso, went 10 deep, and reserve wing Aaron Wiggins knocked down four 3s in the final nine minutes.
With the trade deadline three weeks away (Feb. 6), it is fair to wonder if New York can improve its defense and depth, both of which have been areas of concern from the moment it acquired Towns. The Knicks are in the luxury tax, and they are had-capped at the second apron (and only about $580,000 below it). They traded most of their draft capital to get Bridges, but they can still offer swap rights on their 2026 and 2030 first-round picks and they have plenty of second-rounders available.
Does the front office envision two-big lineups featuring Towns and Mitchell Robinson, who is working his way back from ankle surgery, soon becoming a big part of the team’s identity? (Robinson is expected to return in early February, per SNY’s Ian Begley.) Will New York instead try to trade Robinson’s $14.3 million contract? Precious Achiuwa’s $6 million deal is another potential trade piece, and the New York Post’s Stefan Bondy reported that it been shopping Jericho Sims.
After trading for Anunoby, Bridges and Towns in a nine-month span, the Knicks aren’t about to pull off another blockbuster. If they fancy themselves championship contenders, though, they can’t be content with a roster this top-heavy and a defense that breaks down this easily. If this sounds too harsh an assessment of a team that has won 63% of its games, consider how long it has been since the bar has been this high. It has taken years of patient team-building — and three big swings — for New York to get to the point where its nits deserve to be picked.