4 hours ago
1
It has been the flaw hanging over this team for a while, a concern that has often been masked against bad teams in the regular season or by the miraculous finishes in the playoffs.
Since the Knicks are so reliant on their starters — so utterly reliant that no other five-man lineup came close to the amount of minutes played together than New York’s group — it is vulnerable on defense.
Why? It’s hard to mask one poor defender. But it’s harder to mask two, which is the conundrum facing the Knicks with Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns. That means the Knicks need full commitment to defending the pick-and-roll, full commitment to communicating on switches, full commitment to getting back in transition (ahem, Towns), full commitment to making the correct rotations.
Unfortunately for the Knicks, they’re not doing those things against the Pacers. Especially not Towns, who was on the court for 28 minutes while the Knicks were outscored by 19.
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