NEW YORK — The NBA regular season can tell a story worth remembering, whether people want to dismiss its importance or not. The New York Knicks are a prime example.
The No. 3 seed Knicks now have to scrap and claw for their season to continue after losing a potential close-out game to the Pistons 106-103 on their home floor on Tuesday. New York is going back to Detroit on Thursday with a 3-2 series lead in the first round of the NBA playoffs, a matchup that could just as easily be a one-game advantage the other way.
Are you really surprised, though?
These are the same Knicks that retooled last summer, spending the bulk of their meaningful assets, in an attempt to become title contenders. Yet, they went 0-10 against the top-3 teams in the NBA during the regular season. These are the same Knicks who, if you take out the games against the top-3 teams, were 15-13 against teams that finished the regular season with a winning record. These are the same Knicks who were 9-20 against the top-10 defenses in the NBA. These are the same Knicks who had a high-powered, elite offense that could get bogged down against physical and versatile defensive teams. These are the same Knicks who had the least productive bench in the NBA, and are struggling to get much consistency from that group in the playoffs.
New York, all season long, was a good team with flaws. The playoffs tend to favor the teams with the fewest of them, which is the primary reason why the Knicks are still in the driver’s seat. However, if you paid close attention and were honest with yourself during the bulk of the regular season, the gap between New York and No. 6-seeded Detroit was always closer than the gap between the Knicks and No. 2-seeded Boston Celtics.
If you didn’t want to believe it then, it’s hard to ignore it now.
All of the things that New York struggled with in the regular season reside inside the Pistons, who have been without their best rim protector (Isaiah Stewart) and second-best playmaker (Jaden Ivey). Detroit, a year after winning 14 games, finished the regular season above .500 in large part due to a defense that ranked 10th overall and fifth in the final 50 games of the regular season. When Jalen Brunson isn’t running to the locker room to put on his cape at the start of the fourth quarter in these playoffs, the offense has looked stiff and unsure more than a team with their advanced stats and talent should. The team knows it plays better fast, but it can’t consistently get there.
One way to do that is to be better defensively for longer stretches, but even that was a chore during the regular season and throughout this first round.
“I don’t know what causes that,” Josh Hart said when asked why the offense ebbs and flows so much with its pace. “I think something we can do to stop that is be better defensively, get stops and get out and run. When you’re taking the ball out of the rim, every time you take the ball out, it slows (the offense) up. It allows them to pick up full court. We have to make sure we get stops and continue those possessions with rebounds and get out and run.”
Detroit’s Jalen Duren drives past Karl-Anthony Towns during the third quarter in Game 5. (Sarah Stier / Getty Images)
The contrast between Game 3, when the Knicks put up 118 points in a win by playing fast and connected, and Tuesday’s Game 5, when they scored just 103 points by being disjointed and unable to consistently hit shots, is still confusing. Yet, if you’ve watched all season, it’s still not a surprise.
This offense has either been elite or unrecognizable during the playoffs. This roster, surely, could use another player or two aside from Brunson who can consistently break down a defense off the dribble and create an advantage in the half court. The best teams in this league have multiple players like that. The offense could use a little more creativity when things aren’t going well. The offense could also use the player it traded five first-round picks for to give a little bit more. Mikal Bridges, acquired this summer from Brooklyn, is shooting 42.6 percent from the floor in this series. He hit some critical shots in a Game 4 win in Detroit, but he’s spent much of the series unable to make open shots with regularity and has had trouble around the basket.
All of these things presented themselves during the regular season, as well. New York had a premier offense by the numbers, but would too often find itself facing late deficits or in tight contests despite good percentages. That’s because the team too often played slowly. It didn’t get consistent 3-point shooting. The bench was sporadic during the regular season, and outside of Mitchell Robinson and Cam Payne’s performance in the fourth quarter of Game 1, the bench has been nonexistent this playoffs.
The Knicks have trailed going into the fourth quarter for the majority of this playoff series with Detroit. They’ve been able to close it out because of their talent and the Pistons’ looseness with the basketball. Yet, those two things combined have barely been enough for New York. Four of the five games have been decided by six points or less.
“We haven’t put ourselves in position to get commanding wins,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “We’ve been very gritty this whole series and physical. It’s allowed us to find a way a lot of the time. What’s the differential in Detroit? Like three points? So, you know, you can only do it so many times before it comes back to bite you. Tonight, we put ourselves in the position but couldn’t find a way to get that win.”
The Knicks told us who they were for six months and 82 games. There was no reason to ignore it or think a switch would get flipped. They didn’t do enough to deserve that level of confidence. At a point, a team is what it is, and an 82-game sample size is large enough.
New York very well still could and should win this series against Detroit. The Knicks are still the team with the fewest flaws. However, the goal of this thing wasn’t ever to sneak out of the first round. The aspirations and investments are much bigger.
(Top photo of Dennis Schröder defending against Jalen Brunson: Sarah Stier / Getty Images)