After a New York Knicks regular season that would be described as mildly underwhelming by most, Tom Thibodeau’s seat is slightly warm entering the playoffs.
The Knicks will be held to a high standard in their first-round series against the upstart Detroit Pistons. With back-to-back semifinals exits in the rearview and the defending champion Boston Celtics looming – who the Knicks went 0-4 against this season – this first-round series is about the second-round implications more than anything.
Losing would be an unmitigated disaster. Little debate is required there.
Winning is the expectation for New York. But if they want to inspire any degree of confidence entering the second round, they must do it in dominant fashion. A narrow victory in a series where they are -425 favorites would hardly move the needle regarding the Knicks’ chances of achieving their ultimate goal.
While the Knicks scraped out 51 wins this year, it wasn’t in the prettiest fashion. They finished eighth in net rating (+4.2), which is actually three spots worse than their fifth-place ranking last season (+4.8). More concerning is how they closed the season; they ranked 14th in net rating after the new year (+1.5).
Thibodeau was often criticized for his lack of creativity in maximizing the Knicks’ talent. Predictable offensive sets, stagnant defensive schemes, belated adjustments, and suboptimal rotations were among the most frequent criticisms tossed Thibodeau’s way.
With a 578-420 career record (.579) in the regular season, Thibodeau has already proven himself to be among the best floor-raisers in NBA history. He facilitated instant turnarounds in Chicago, Minnesota, and New York. His tough-minded approach and ability to relate with players help him produce immediate results and keep the standard high for 82 games.
The question has always been whether Thibodeau is a coach who can get a team over the top. His playoff record is just 38-47 (.447). He’s made nine playoff trips without registering a single Finals appearance.
And as we enter the 2025 NBA playoffs, the “Can Thibs get you over the top?” narrative has never been more prominent.
Thibodeau’s strengths are ideal for producing consistent results in the regular season. But does he have the strategic acumen and innovative mind to outcoach another team in four consecutive seven-game series? His inability to coach the Knicks to elite-level efficiency in the 2024-25 season did not inspire confidence that the answer is “yes.”
Nor did his team’s atrocious performance against the top title contenders (0-10 vs. Boston, Cleveland, and Oklahoma City).
This Knicks team has the talent to win a title. The preseason odds said as much; they had the third-best championship odds at multiple sportsbooks. Their regular season performance, however, indicates they are barely a semi-interesting dark horse.
The playoffs are an entirely new season, though.
While the Knicks are fully expected to survive Detroit, there is still a standard of excellence they should be held to. This series provides New York with an opportunity to prove they can flip the switch now that the real season has begun. They must level up to championship-caliber basketball before they clash with their greatest nemesis.
And to pull it off, their head coach must prove he can concoct the perfect strategy to optimize the Knicks’ success.
If the Knicks want to dominate the Detroit Pistons to the level they are capable of, these are the top weaknesses Tom Thibodeau must target on both ends of the court.
Knicks offense vs. Pistons defense
Target Jalen Duren with Karl-Anthony Towns (Particularly on 3PA)
The Detroit defense has a gigantic sieve in the middle, Jalen Duren. New York just happens to have one of the most talented offensive centers in the sport, Karl-Anthony Towns.
New York must pound this matchup until the Pistons prove they can stop it.
According to Dunks And Threes, Duren ranked in the 16th percentile among NBA players with a season D-EPM of -1.2. It was the worst rating among Pistons players and the 11th-worst rating among centers who played at least 50 games.
Duren played the fifth-most minutes on the Pistons this season, and yet, they finished 11th in defensive rating. It speaks to the defensive talent of the rest of the roster that they ranked top-11 despite having one of the worst defensive centers in the NBA playing so many minutes. For that reason, the Knicks would be silly not to target Duren every time down the floor.
According to NBA.com, Duren ranks in the 21st percentile with 0.97 points allowed per possession when guarding the ball handler in a pick-and-roll. He gave up a whopping 541 points in this situation, 10th-most in the NBA.
Towns can do significant damage against Duren from the outside. According to NBA.com, Duren yielded an effective field goal percentage of 60.6% against spot-up jump shots. This ranked fourth-worst among centers who played at least 50 games.
This gives Towns a perfect opportunity to unleash a part of his game that was slightly underwhelming in the regular season. While Towns knocked down a stellar 42% of his three-point attempts, he attempted only 4.7 treys per game, his fewest in six years. Against Duren, Towns should receive the space he needs to boost his three-point attempts.
One of the Knicks’ biggest issues against the Celtics is how severely they were outshot from the three-point line. Across their four matchups this season, the Celtics made an unfathomable 84 threes (21.0 per game), canning at least 17 in each contest. The Knicks made just 45 threes (11.3 per game), with no more than 14 in a game. You aren’t going to win a seven-game series like that.
New York, which ranked 27th in three-point attempts per game this season (34.1), needs to significantly increase its three-point volume to keep up with Boston. Towns must play a large part in that, and he can start his metamorphosis by launching bombs over Duren.
Matchup-hunt for Tim Hardaway Jr. in pick-and-rolls
Based on season D-EPM, Tim Hardaway Jr. is the second-worst defender in Detroit’s lineup after Duren. He ranked in the 18th percentile among all players (-1.1).
Like Duren, Hardaway Jr. is extremely susceptible as a pick-and-roll defender. He ranked in the 3rd percentile with 1.14 points allowed per possession when guarding the ball handler in a pick and roll.
The Knicks often have trouble defensively when teams matchup-hunt for Jalen Brunson. It’s about time that they start doing the same to other teams.
Whether it’s Brunson, OG Anunoby, or Mikal Bridges, the Knicks should hunt down Hardaway Jr. whenever they are looking for perimeter offense. It would be stubborn and foolish to insist on running the offense through Brunson when he is guarded by Detroit’s better defenders, such as Ausar Thompson (99th percentile in D-EPM) and Cade Cunningham (83rd percentile in season D-EPM).
Find the worst defenders and punish them. When Detroit responds with doubles or matchup-switches to counter, trust your best players to respond by making the right play. This shouldn’t be difficult to execute for the only NBA team with four players who scored 17+ PPG on a 55%+ effective field goal percentage – no other team has more than two of these players.
Knicks defense vs. Pistons offense
Experiment with the Towns-Robinson lineup
The Knicks briefly explored the Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson pairing late in the season. In a minuscule sample, it led to great results.
Across 47 minutes with Towns and Robinson on the floor, the Knicks had a net rating of +9.2. With a minimum of 40 minutes, it was the Knicks’ fourth-best two-man pairing featuring Towns.
Most of the success occurred offensively. The Knicks had a 128.0 offensive rating, making it the third-highest-scoring two-man pairing on the team (among 80 pairings with min. 40 minutes) and the most prolific featuring Towns.
However, it’s on the defensive side where this pairing carries appeal in the Detroit series.
One of the best aspects of Detroit’s offense is its ability to generate easy dunks – mostly facilitated by Cade Cunningham, who averaged 9.1 assists per game. Detroit led the NBA with 558 dunks; that’s a whopping 6.8 slams per game. No other team even had 500 dunks.
With Towns at center, the Knicks’ rim protection is middling at best. New York finished the season allowing 378 dunks (4.6 per game), which only ranked 14th-best in the NBA.
Having Robinson’s length and athleticism at center would be a massive boost to counter Detroit’s reliance on dunks off of Cunningham pick-and-rolls. Nearly 40% of Detroit’s dunks came from center Jalen Duren, who ranked third in the NBA with 219 of them. The Knicks need an athletic defender who can match the 21-year-old leaper, and Robinson is a much better fit than Towns.
Robinson has had nearly two months to ramp himself back up into game shape, and back-to-backs are now off the table. If Detroit finds success early on at exploiting Towns for easy dunks, Thibodeau cannot hesitate to experiment with heavy minutes for the Towns-Robinson pairing. It could be the Knicks’ best answer to one of the primary cogs in Detroit’s offense.
Have an aggressive mentality seeking turnovers
The Knicks are at their best when their transition offense is firing on all cylinders. The problem is that they don’t get their transition game going often enough.
New York ranked second-best in the NBA with 1.18 points per possession in transition, trailing only the Cleveland Cavaliers. They were even better than notoriously young and speedy teams like the Thunder and Pacers.
What the Knicks need to do is figure out how to create more of these possessions. Despite their efficiency in transition, they were only 16th with 20.1 transition possessions per game.
Detroit presents a favorable opportunity for the Knicks to spark their transition game. The Pistons turned the ball over 14.8 times per 100 possessions, which ranked 11th-worst in the NBA.
More importantly, the Pistons tend to yield a high rate of live-ball turnovers. Detroit’s opponents collected 8.8 steals per 100 possessions, placing ninth-worst. This is unusually poor for a playoff-caliber team; among teams with winning records, only the Clippers allowed more steals per 100 possessions.
The Knicks ranked 10th-best in the NBA with 8.4 steals per 100 possessions. Unsurprisingly, they played some of their best basketball in games where their defense sparked a high volume of opportunities for their elite transition offense. When the Knicks recorded 10+ steals, they went 21-6 (.778) with a net rating of +10.2.
While Cade Cunningham is a dynamic talent, ball security remains a work in progress for him. He ranked second in the NBA with 4.4 turnovers per game. Thibodeau should coach the Knicks to defend Cunningham with an aggressive mentality, seeking to pressure him into more turnovers.
This is an adjustment the Knicks need to make from their regular season matchups with Detroit. Cunningham averaged just 2.5 turnovers per game in four contests against the Knicks, a key factor in the Pistons’ 3-1 advantage. He finished below his season average of 4.4 turnovers in all four matchups.
The Knicks should feel comfortable about playing Cunningham aggressively due to his still-underdeveloped jump shot. If the Knicks’ defenders gamble for a steal and come up empty, allowing Cunningham to blow by them, Cunningham is less likely to punish them than most other ball-dominant guards. He shot just 41.4% on pull-ups this season, including 33.8% on pull-up threes.
The real danger of a Cunningham blow-by is that he will hit the backdoor pass for a dunk. That is where our previous point comes in. If the Knicks have Robinson on the floor, his rim protection can help deny Cunningham’s lobs and dump-offs for easy slams. This buys freedom for the perimeter defenders to play aggressively in search of turnovers, as they can rest assured that Robinson will turn Cunningham’s drives into low-percentage pull-up attempts instead of easy dunks.
Defense in the modern NBA is about choosing the least dangerous threats to gamble on. Today’s offenses are far too quick and talented to take away everything. The Knicks should elect to make Cunningham beat them with his jump shot, while focusing on taking away his lobs and exploiting his ball security.
Prove-it time for Tom Thibodeau and the Knicks
Simply beating the Pistons won’t do anything to prove New York is ready for Boston, regardless of how impressively they do it. Even if they dismantle Detroit, it still does not guarantee success against the NBA’s elites.
Still, dismantling Detroit is a requisite piece of the puzzle.
If Thibodeau cannot coach New York to fully exploit the weaknesses in a much less talented Detroit team, the Celtics series will be over before it begins. The only Knicks team that can take down Boston is the one that proves the Detroit Pistons do not belong on the same court with them.
The Knicks clearly must level up from their regular season form if they wish to compete with Boston in a seven-game series. That is not going to happen with a flick of the switch once the semifinals begin. Luckily, this first-round series provides New York with a golden opportunity to develop championship-caliber habits before the real test arrives.
The weaknesses in Detroit’s defense are ideal for establishing a rhythm of higher three-point volume, which will be essential for the Knicks to keep up with Boston.
On the other side of the ball, the Knicks can explore the possibilities of the Towns-Robinson pairing while tapping into the full potential of their transition offense.
As we said earlier, if the Knicks lose this series, this whole conversation is moot. In no world where the Knicks lose to Detroit were they ever going to have a remote chance against Boston, even if they lose narrowly.
The real conversation at hand is whether the Knicks can use this series to inspire newfound faith in their championship chances after going 0-10 (mostly in blowout fashion) against the top three contenders. The bar is high: ideally, New York wins in four or five. If it goes to six, you’d prefer to see a dominant net rating across the six-game sample. A seven-game victory is hard to feel great about.
Meeting that high bar must start with exploiting the four holes we discussed today.
