The New York Knicks closed their pre-break portion of the 2024-25 campaign with a wild one-point overtime victory over the Atlanta Hawks. With a final score of 149-148, this game gave all the Knicks classics: Jalen Brunson’s clutch heroics, Karl-Anthony Towns’s dominance, unstoppable offense, mind-boggling mistakes, and Swiss-cheese defense. A win is a win, and fans will take it after years of losing these games, but it epitomized everything right and wrong with this New York team.
Knicks Thrilling Win vs. Hawks Exemplifies Their Season
The final sequence of this game was a microcosm of the Knicks’ weaknesses. After Josh Hart drained two free throws to put New York up six with 18 seconds left, chaos broke out. New York inexplicably left sharpshooter Georges Niang open for a three, which he swished with 9.1 ticks remaining. Towns then threw the inbound pass directly to a pressuring Dyson Daniels for his fourth steal, and he was fouled on a layup attempt with 7.1 seconds left. After he split the free throws, Atlanta grabbed an offensive rebound, leading to two Trae Young freebies to send the game into overtime. Tom Thibodeau must be pulling what’s left of his hair out after that sequence, but this Knicks team has squandered several games with poor attention to detail.
New York’s Defense Is Easily Broken
Beyond all the theatrics of last night’s ending, the Knicks’ Achilles heel is obvious. Their starting and closing lineup features Brunson and Towns, two slow-footed, easily-attackable defenders. It’s far too easy for opponents to manipulate matchups to attack either of the two in isolation or both in pick-and-roll. Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, and Hart aggressively getting over screens and flying around in rotation can help. Still, this issue isn’t totally solvable without a lineup change that will never come.
Young was the latest to get into the paint with ridiculous ease, creating easy shots for himself and others. Jayson Tatum did it last Saturday en route to an embarrassing blowout, and many others took advantage. To be fair, New York had some good nights defensively lately, such as their blowout of Ja Morant’s Memphis Grizzlies. Unfortunately, solid defensive performances have been more of an exception than the norm, which is why they rank 18th in defensive rating.
Mitchell Robinson‘s return will give Thibodeau more choices to fix the defense. Any lineup with the seven-footer on the floor will automatically be a solid unit, and he can save New York’s bacon in big spots. Additionally, their second units will be extremely scary on that end, with Miles McBride, Precious Achiuwa, and Robinson all being elite defenders. Still, if Thibs sticks with his starters down the stretch of playoff games, getting stops could be a major issue.
Brunson and Towns Are Magical Offensive Players
For as bad as the defense looked, the win was a perfect example of how special their offensive duo is. Brunson (36 points, eight assists, 13-21 FG) and Towns (44 points, 10 rebounds, 14-25 FG) proved once again that they may be the NBA’s most prolific offensive duo. They’ve been combining for magical nights all season, and this was perhaps their best on the eve of the All-Star game, where they’ll start alongside each other.
Leon Rose has long envisioned pairing these two together, and he finally made it happen in late September 2024. We now see why, as they are the perfect offensive duo. If there’s one reason why this team can win a championship, whether now or in the future, it’s that these two players can overcome any adversity with their skills. Brunson’s game-winner over All-NBA caliber defender Daniels was the cherry on top.
No one expected this squad to be perfect. They have a lot to work on to match the excellence of the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers, and they need to get healthy. Luckily, they have a legitimately great offense spearheaded by two special players. Time will tell whether it’s enough.
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