Rock bottom, meet an even rockier bottom.

If you thought things had gotten as bad as they could get for the New York Knicks, think again.

At home, with their full lineup healthy for the first time in a long while, the Knicks went down by as many as 30 points in an uncontested 17-point loss to the Dallas Mavericks, who came to New York with a 4-14 road record and four rotation players out of the lineup.

Things are out of hand, and drastic changes may be on the way.

Those changes will likely attempt to solve the obvious root of the Knicks’ struggles, which will be revealed through a breakdown of the top three reasons New York’s season has gone haywire.

1. The Knicks cannot guard anyone with Jalen Brunson on the court

New York’s woes begin with a harsh reality that doesn’t have an easy solution: This team struggles to get stops with its franchise player, Jalen Brunson, on the court.

On the year, the Knicks are allowing 120.2 points per 100 possessions with Brunson on the court (per PBP Stats). It’s the worst mark on the team among the 12 players who have logged at least 200 minutes.

In comparison, the Knicks allow 109.6 points per 100 possessions with Brunson off the court. That’s a 10.6-point difference, which is colossal for one player, especially a starter who plays most of his minutes with other starters.

Brunson makes up for it on offense, as the Knicks are scoring 124.1 points per 100 possessions with him on compared to 113.3 with him off (+10.9), but it’s not enough to overcome the defensive downgrade.

All in all, Brunson’s presence has essentially been worth a net-zero for the Knicks this year, and it’s all because of his defensive impact. Offensively, Brunson is playing as well as ever, and it’s reflected in the team’s performance when he is on the court. Defensively, though, he’s been as detrimental as his offense has been helpful, which is saying a lot, because his offense is extremely good.

Things have been even worse during the Knicks’ recent cold stretch. Since the NBA Cup, the Knicks are allowing 126.4 points per 100 possessions with Brunson on the court, the third-worst mark in the NBA over that span, and the other four players in the top five are members of the Utah Jazz.

Worst defensive ratings since Dec. 18 (min. 15 GP/20.0 MPG):

  • Isaiah Collier, UTA (127.7)
  • Cody Williams, UTA (126.4)
  • Jalen Brunson, NYK (126.4)
  • Kyle Filipowski, UTA (126.1)
  • Walter Clayton Jr., UTA (124.2)

Individual defensive metrics are shaky, but in Brunson’s case, they line up with his on-off impact. According to NBA.com, Brunson has allowed his matchups to shoot 5.1% better than expected. That is the fifth-worst mark in the NBA among the 151 players who have defended at least 10 field goal attempts per game (min. 20 games played), and the third-worst among point guards.

Worst FG% differential allowed among PG (min. 20 GP/10.0 DFGA per game):

  • Andrew Nembhard, IND (5.8%)
  • Jeremiah Fears, NOP (5.5%)
  • Jalen Brunson, NYK (5.1%)
  • Vit Krejci, ATL (5.1%)
  • Darius Garland, CLE (4.9%)

Fielding a respectable defense with Brunson on the court is not impossible. Two seasons ago, the Knicks’ defense managed to experience only a 2.4-point drop-off with Brunson on the court, yielding a respectable 114.5 points per 100 possessions with him on compared to 112.1 with him off. Coupled with their 14.3-point offensive leap with him on (122.9) versus off (108.6), Brunson made a massive overall positive impact (+11.9 on-off net) in the 2023-24 season.

Since he was paired with Karl-Anthony Towns, though, the Knicks have been unable to figure out how to make the defense work with Brunson on the court, as his defensive woes are exacerbated by sharing most of his minutes with Towns, another sieve.

In the 2024-25 season, the Knicks’ defense stooped to 7.7 points worse with Brunson on (117.6) versus off (109.9), while the offensive impact plummeted to a 3.7-point jump (120.2 versus 116.5). This made Brunson’s presence on the court a net-negative (-4.0 on-off net).

Brunson will never be a good defender, but that does not mean his presence on the court should sink the entire defense to league-worst levels. There are ways to build a lineup around him that is competent enough defensively for his elite offense to put the team over the top.

Putting him alongside Karl-Anthony Towns is not the way to do it.

2. Karl-Anthony Towns has given up defensively, causing the Brunson-Towns lineups to become untenable on that end

According to NBA.com, Towns has allowed his matchups to shoot 6% better than expected since the NBA Cup. Over that span, it ranks third-worst among centers.

Worst FG% differential allowed among C since Dec. 18 (min. 10 GP/10.0 DFGA per game):

  • Micah Potter, IND (7.8%)
  • Deandre Ayton, LAL (6.5%)
  • Karl-Anthony Towns, NYK (6.0%)
  • Jay Huff, IND (2.8%)
  • Kyle Filipowski, UTA (2.6%)

The company Towns shares on that list is enough to exemplify just how bad his defense has become. He is joined by two undrafted players on the decimated Pacers roster, the infamously low-effort Deandre Ayton, and a 22-year-old former second-round pick from the defensively challenged Jazz.

New York’s defense cannot survive with a guy like this—not when they already have to worry about covering for Brunson in the backcourt.

Brunson-centered lineups require him to play alongside excellent defensive talent to operate at the highest level. If he has that, especially in the frontcourt, the Knicks can make it work.

Back in 2023-24, when the Knicks played competent defense with Brunson on the court, their best five-man defensive lineup with Brunson (min. 100 minutes) featured Josh Hart, OG Anunoby, Donte DiVincenzo, and Isaiah Hartenstein. The Knicks allowed 102.7 points per 100 possessions with this lineup on the court, and were a +15.6 overall.

Fast forward to the 2025-26 season, and when the Knicks use a similar lineup with Towns subbed in for Hartenstein, the defensive drop-off is gargantuan.

The Knicks’ most common five-man lineup this season (143 minutes) features Brunson, Hart, Anunoby, Towns, and Mikal Bridges. That’s three of the same five players from the demonic defensive lineup of two seasons ago, with Bridges subbed in for DiVincenzo (which should be a defensive upgrade) and Towns in for Hartenstein.

New York’s defensive rating with that group on the court? 116.5: a whopping 11.8 points worse than the Brunson-Hart-Anunoby-DiVincenzo-Hartenstein lineup from two years ago.

Yet, it doesn’t even yield worthwhile offensive dividends, with the Knicks averaging 116.8 points per 100 possessions offensively, giving them a net rating of +0.4. The aforementioned lineup was a +15.6.

The Knicks tried to make Brunson-Towns work. The hope was that these two All-Stars would make the Knicks so dominant offensively that they could compete for a championship with a defense that, ideally, would be dragged up to league-average by the talents of Anunoby and Bridges.

By now, it’s been proven that this cannot work. There is nothing that players like Bridges and Anunoby can do to cover for two liabilities like Brunson and Towns on the court together. With one guard and one big who both cannot stay in front of a man, it is a cakewalk to target the liabilities, generate paint touches, and spray the ball out for open threes.

The Knicks could hide Brunson on defense before Towns arrived, because if a team targeted him, the action would usually include an at-least competent defender who could thwart the play. Now, it often involves Towns, leaving the Knicks with no way out.

It minimizes the defensive impact of Bridges and Anunoby. Rather than guarding the ball and making plays, their roles have been reduced to little more than scrambling from off the ball to path the holes opened by Brunson and Towns, and usually to no avail, as the damage is already done once the Knicks are in scramble mode.

If the Knicks want to take a last stand to salvage their championship hopes in the Brunson era, they have to part ways with Towns and focus on building lineups that allow the defense to hold up with Brunson on the court. The 2023-24 season proved that there are ways for the Knicks to cover for one defensive liability, but two? It’s not going to happen.

3. The defense is leaking into the offense

New York’s defense is much worse than the offense right now, but the problem is that this team was built to be elite offensively, and instead, they look average.

Since the NBA Cup, the Knicks are just 16th in the league with a 114.5 offensive rating. Relative to expectations, it is equally as much of a problem as their 29th-ranked defense (119.6) over that span.

The Knicks’ championship model is to have a top 1-3 offense and a top 14-16 defense. Both units are underperforming by around 15 spots.

Given that the defense is the significantly ghastlier issue, it stands to reason that the defense is doing more damage to the offense than vice versa.

The least efficient way to start a possession is off a made basket by the opponent. Simply put, the more makes you allow, the less efficient your offense is going to be. It means you’re creating fewer high-efficiency possession-starters, whether it’s a live-ball turnover or a long defensive rebound.

We’ve highlighted it many times before, but the Knicks’ offense is at its best in transition. They still rank third-best in the NBA with 1.19 points per possession in transition, even with all of the recent struggles.

The fewer stops the Knicks make defensively, the less often they will be able to get out in transition. The less often the Knicks get out in transition, the more often they will find themselves bogged down in half-court possessions that end in low-percentage isolation heaves from Brunson and Towns.

The Knicks’ horrid play as of late is the end result of a trickle-down effect that all starts with their horrid defensive production when their best player is on the court. It’s an inherent obstacle to building around Brunson that the Knicks will always have to deal with, but it does not have to doom the entire team. In past years, we saw that the Knicks are more than capable of fielding a top-tier offense and competent defense with Brunson as the centerpiece.

To do it, though, they must build a lineup around Brunson that is catered to his strengths and weaknesses.

Any lineup with Towns does not accomplish that.

Towns’ trade value is probably too low for the Knicks to turn him into any players who are remotely close to as skilled as he is, but it might not matter at this point; it is difficult to envision their defense ever recovering as long as he remains on the team. In turn, the offense will struggle to recover if the defense remains this abominable, rendering Towns’ offensive talent useless.

After a year-and-a-half of experimentation with a core duo that was risky from the start, we have enough evidence to conclude that parting ways with Towns is probably the Knicks’ best option, no matter who they get (or don’t get) in return.

In all likelihood, the Knicks’ only hope to salvage a championship contender from the Brunson era is to ship off Towns and hope it can be an addition by subtraction. While it is not guaranteed to be a successful decision, there is a chance the Knicks can find immense value in the improved defensive lineups they would be able to build around Brunson.

With the way the team is playing offensively right now, it’s not as if there is much offensive value to be lost in Towns, anyway. There is greater potential gain in determining whether subtracting Towns can save the defense, thereby restoring the offense as a byproduct.

Brunson has proven (especially late in 2023-24) that he is a special enough offensive engine to anchor an elite offense without a second All-Star; he just needs an array of shooters, and the Knicks have that. The only thing they should be focused on fixing is the defense.

New York’s loss to Dallas was about as point-of-no-return as an NBA game could get in an 82-game sample size. Barring a defensive turnaround of shocking proportions in the coming days, something has to give soon, and trading Towns seems like the most logical option to heal what ails New York most: the defense.