Don’t look now, but the New York Knicks are playing some of the best defense in basketball.
Yes, the same New York Knicks with Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns in the starting lineup.
Since Jan. 21, the Knicks have the best defensive rating in the NBA at 103.1. Not only are they ranked first over this 20-game span, but it isn’t even close. They’re 3.2 points ahead of the second-ranked San Antonio Spurs (106.3), the same distance between San Antonio and the eighth-ranked Cleveland Cavaliers (109.5).
If New York can sustain this type of defensive play through the playoffs, there is no question that they will be among the most serious threats for the NBA championship. The Knicks’ offensive capabilities have never been in question. It’s their defense, which ranked 14th last season and fell to 18th through 43 games this season, that has always been the biggest roadblock to their quest for a title.
Knicks fans are wondering whether this 20-game run of dominant defense is a mere blip or something that will be sustained. To get the definitive answer, we will have to watch the rest of the season play out, but for now, we can read the tea leaves to estimate which outcome is more likely.
If these three stats are any indication, Knicks fans are justified in believing that New York’s defensive surge is a legitimate flip of the switch that will be sustained moving forward.
1. Full-season defensive rating without Jordan Clarkson on the court
One of the strongest indicators that New York’s defensive surge is legitimate? Their full-season defensive rating without Jordan Clarkson on the court. It’s a simple, large-sample number that we can trust to remain stable in the future.
According to Databallr, the Knicks have a 114.9 defensive rating across 971 minutes with Clarkson on the court this season. That rating would currently rank 18th out of 30 NBA teams this season, slotting between two middling squads in Philadelphia (114.4) and the L.A. Clippers (115.1).
Across a substantial sample size of 2,020 minutes with Clarkson on the bench, the Knicks’ defensive rating takes a massive leap to 110.9. That would currently rank fourth-best out of 30 NBA teams, trailing only the elite Thunder, Pistons, and Spurs.
Clarkson was playing a key role for the Knicks over their first 43 games, logging about 20 minutes per game off the bench across this span. His ensuing benching directly coincides with New York’s defensive surge.
In the Knicks’ Jan. 21 win over the Brooklyn Nets, Clarkson sat out the first three quarters for the first time all season. New York pulled off a franchise record-setting 54-point blowout, sparking the 20-game stretch of a 15-5 record and elite defensive play that the team still finds itself in. Clarkson has remained out of the rotation during this stretch, save for a few games when injuries forced him back onto the court for spot minutes.
Clarkson is such a massive defensive liability that his 20 minutes per game were enough to sink the team’s overall defense to league-average caliber over the first 43 games of the season. From the exact moment that the Knicks took his minutes away, New York’s defense instantly skyrocketed to elite caliber.
With Clarkson on the bench, more minutes are going to superior defenders like Landry Shamet and Jose Alvarado. It’s simple math. Given that Clarkson’s low-percentage shooting was not helping the offense anyway, they are a much better team the less he plays.
As long as the Knicks stay healthy enough to keep Clarkson on the bench, New York’s defensive rating without him is an extremely promising signal about their defensive future. It’s a reliable and sustainable metric.
2. Not much shooting luck
In any single basketball game, the final stats can tell the wrong story about how well a team played defensively. Shooting is an erratic skill, so a team can play horrid defense in a game and look good defensively just because the opponent missed a bunch of open shots.
As sample sizes extend, though, shooting evens out, revealing the true quality of a team’s defense.
For the Knicks, it is extremely promising that they have maintained the NBA’s best defensive rating by a wide margin over a 20-game span. The longer this goes, the more legitimate it becomes.
However, 20 games is still a small enough sample for shooting luck to greatly influence a team’s defensive performance. It’s less than a quarter of the season.
The good news for the Knicks is that shooting luck does not seem to be playing a major role in their defensive surge.
Opponent free throw shooting is the most uncontrollable facet of basketball. The Knicks’ opponents have shot 77.3% from the stripe over the last 20 games, ranking 15th-lowest in the NBA—smack in the middle. So, there is no good or bad luck to be found here.
New York has also been unlucky to have their opponents do an excellent job of finishing tough looks around the basket.
According to NBA.com’s tracking, the Knicks’ opponents are shooting 53.7% on two-point attempts with “very tight” coverage (≤2ft from the nearest defender) since Jan. 21, the fifth-highest mark in the league over this span. It says a lot that New York has remained elite defensively despite their opponents converting difficult looks at such a high clip.
The one concern is that the Knicks’ opponents have a league-low 33% conversion rate on “wide open” (6+ ft of separation) threes since Jan. 21. However, this is balanced out by the Knicks’ opponents shooting 74.4% on wide open twos, the seventh-highest rate.
It can also be argued that the wide open three-point shooting of New York’s opponents is partially an indicator of the Knicks’ defensive skill at choosing the right shooters to leave open. There is a difference between leaving Giannis Antetokounmpo and Stephen Curry wide open for a three.
Overall, the Knicks’ defensive luck has balanced out over the last 20 games. They have not been extremely lucky nor unlucky. It renders their elite defensive rating legitimate.
3. Karl-Anthony Towns’ turnaround
Karl-Anthony Towns has been the subject of immense scrutiny this season for his peculiar role on offense. Towns is averaging nearly five fewer points per game than last season. There have been many recent games where he took single-digit shots from the field.
Amidst all of the attention being directed at Towns’ offensive game, many people are overlooking the evolution he has undergone on defense.
Since Jan. 21, Towns is holding his matchups to a field goal percentage 1.9 points below their expected average, per NBA.com, which is a massive improvement for him. It’s a 4.5-point jump compared to his 2024-25 performance, when his matchups shot 2.6 points above their expected field goal percentage.
Towns improving from a weak defender to an above-average one is a game-changing development for New York. If he is playing plus defense—even if it isn’t elite defense—it removes a weak point for opponents to exploit. That gives the Knicks so many more matchup options on the defensive end, improving the defense as a whole.
Couple Towns’ above-average defense with his elite defensive rebounding (he’s fourth with 8.7 defensive rebounds per game) and his sublime efficiency on offense, and he’s been a substantial positive-impact player for the Knicks over his last 19 games.
Since the Jan. 21 win over Brooklyn, Towns has posted an average plus-minus of +10.6 per game. It’s second-best on the team over that span behind only OG Anunoby (+11.0), making them the only players above +8.0, and it’s also a seven-point improvement over KAT’s per-game average of +3.6 before Jan. 21.
So, sure, Towns is not scoring at nearly as high a volume as he’s capable of, and it’s strange why he is taking so few shots. But he’s still scoring efficiently with the shots he does take—he’s got a 60.7% true shooting percentage this season. If Towns continues converting his looks at a high clip, dominating the defensive glass, and playing above-average defense on his matchups, he will be a huge difference-maker.
We’ve seen that over the last 20 games. Critics will focus on his lack of total points, but Towns’ impact on winning has never been better since he put on a Knick uniform, and it stems from his turnaround on defense.
Nothing could make the Knicks’ defensive turnaround feel more sustainable than one of their weakest defenders flipping the script and turning himself into a net positive. A Knicks team with Karl-Anthony Towns as an above-average defender should be one of the five best defensive teams in the NBA, at the very least.
