The New York Knicks are a good basketball team. Some might label them as “one of the best teams in the NBA.”
But they’re certainly not the best, or even in the conversation. That’s what has Knicks fans frustrated with just six games left until the 2026 playoffs.
The orange-and-blue faithful are worried that the Knicks’ current core has reached its ceiling. After three straight seasons of 47 to 51 wins and a playoff finish ranging from the semifinals to the conference finals, it sure feels like New York is headed for the same fate.
So, what precisely is it that makes up the gap between the Knicks’ mere “good” status and the juggernauts that rest comfortably above them in the standings?
Here are a few of the primary separators.
Who are we comparing the Knicks to?
There are four NBA teams with a better net rating than the Knicks:
- Oklahoma City Thunder (+10.9)
- San Antonio Spurs (+8.3)
- Detroit Pistons (+8.1)
- Boston Celtics (+7.6)
- New York Knicks (+6.0)
In terms of net rating, the Knicks are comfortably ahead of every other NBA team. In fact, the 1.2 points that separate them and the sixth-ranked Charlotte Hornets (+4.8) is equal to the gap between Charlotte and the 10th-ranked Minnesota Timberwolves (+3.6).
So, the Knicks are pretty darn good. What grinds Knicks fans’ gears is that they aren’t quite as good as those aforementioned four teams, especially since the Knicks were expected to be better than each of them except for Oklahoma City.
We’re going to focus on some of the traits that make Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Detroit, and Boston better than the Knicks at the moment.
Elite defense
The Knicks have a 118.4 offensive rating, which ranks third in the NBA. They are tied with San Antonio, five spots ahead of Oklahoma City (8th, 117.1), and six spots ahead of Detroit (9th, 116.9).
Only Boston has a better offense among the league’s top five teams (2nd, 119.2). The Denver Nuggets are first.
It’s on defense where the Knicks are well behind their competition.
Oklahoma City (106.3), Detroit (108.8), San Antonio (110.1), and Boston (111.5) are the four best defensive teams in the NBA. New York (112.4) is eighth. That’s not bad at all, but this type of gap is precisely what we’re looking for. It’s the type of “good, not great” performance that separates the Knicks from the teams they’re supposed to be competing with.
So, to understand what is holding the Knicks back from being as dominant as the league’s top-tier teams, we have to unpack their defense. They’re doing enough on the other end. It’s on defense where most of the gap exists.
1. Forcing floaters instead of rim attempts
One of the top priorities for an NBA defense is to force floaters instead of layups and dunks. This is something that the Knicks have struggled with, while their four rivals excel at it.
Boston has allowed a league-low 15.9% of opponent field goal attempts to come from within three feet of the basket. Detroit is third (17.9%), Oklahoma City is seventh (20.7%), and San Antonio is 12th (22.6%).
The Knicks are the only team of the five who are below-average in this category, allowing a 19th-ranked 24.2% rate, which is above the NBA average (23%).
Meanwhile, the Knicks are doing a very poor job of forcing shots in the floater range. Their opponents are taking a league-low 16.5% of their field goal attempts from 3-to-10 feet out, which is well below the NBA average (21%). Detroit is second-best in this category (26.9%), while Boston is fifth (23.7%).
Oklahoma City (21st, 19.3%) and San Antonio (23rd, 18.3%) actually haven’t forced a ton of floaters, either, but they have been much more competent than the Knicks, and it’s balanced out by the low frequency of rim attempts they allow.
To catch up with the league’s elite defenses, the Knicks need to do a better job of preventing drivers from getting into the restricted area. They must stay disciplined in their protection of the rim, enticing ball handlers to jack up floaters. If the Knicks commit too hard to contesting floaters, they will allow too many layups, dunks, and free throws to be an elite defense.
Defense is about smarts and tactics as much as it is about hustle. The Knicks must follow the lead of top-tier NBA teams and work to convert opponent rim attempts into floater attempts. The name of the game is giving up the lowest-percentage shots possible.
2. What’s your calling card?
The Knicks’ defense isn’t the worst of the five teams in every category.
They force turnovers at a much higher rate than San Antonio and Boston. They get a higher percentage of defensive rebounds than all but San Antonio, and they allow fewer free throws than Detroit.
The problem is they aren’t the best at anything.
Being an elite defense isn’t about thriving in every area. The Thunder give up a ton of threes, the Pistons give up a ton of free throws, and the Spurs and Celtics cannot force turnovers.
Each elite defense, though, has at least one calling card—a dominant strength that anchors their success.
The Knicks need to find theirs.
Perhaps the best route is defensive rebounding. The Knicks are third-best in that category, hauling in 71.8% of opponent misses, but they can be even better. It’s the one area where they can expect players with certain defensive deficiencies, like Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Hart, to consistently make a dominant defensive impact.
Towns and Hart occasionally give up baskets, but if they focus on ending possessions to the best of their ability, it will help the Knicks become an elite defense in the long run, as they will give up significantly fewer second-chance points than any other team.
It goes beyond just Towns and Hart, though. Those two are doing their part, combining for 14.9 defensive rebounds per game. There needs to be a team-wide commitment to crashing the defensive glass. If that exists, the Knicks could prevent second-chance opportunities better than any other team, which could be enough to make them an elite defense despite some other sub-elite categories.
Another area where the Knicks are flirting with defensive dominance is rim protection. They rank fifth-best in the NBA with a 67.1% conversion rate allowed on attempts within three feet. However, three of the four teams above them are Oklahoma City (64.4%), Detroit (66.0%), and San Antonio (66.2%).
But with Mitchell Robinson getting healthy and Karl-Anthony Towns turning up his defensive impact over the past few months, the Knicks have the troops to field as good a rim-protecting unit as anyone. They are already top-five, so if their bigs can truly lock in on defense as the playoffs approach, the sky is the limit.
Pushing for the offensive throne
As we previously mentioned, the Knicks’ offense has done enough to solidify New York as a top-five team. They have the third-best offensive rating, and only one of the NBA’s top four teams has a better offense.
That doesn’t mean the Knicks should settle for their current state of affairs on offense.
New York has the weapons to field the league’s best offense (or at least the best in the East, as that Nikola Jokic-led group in Denver is in a completely different stratosphere). Even with a third-ranked 118.4 offensive rating, the Knicks are leaving meat on the bone.
While the Knicks’ defense is worse than their offense, they still need their offense to pick up some of the slack as they attempt to close the gap between them and the league’s best teams. Their defense doesn’t have to be quite as good as the top four defenses if their offense becomes the best in the league, especially if it is the best by a longshot.
Here is how they take their elite offense up another notch. Some of these goals may be wishful thinking with just six games left in the regular season, but if there is a time for Mike Brown to make drastic adjustments, it’s now.
1. Generate more Karl-Anthony Towns threes
With a primary ball-handler like Jalen Brunson, it shouldn’t be hard to generate pick-and-pop threes for Karl-Anthony Towns, one of the greatest shooting big men of all time. Yet, it seems like the only threes Towns takes are trailers from the logo in transition.
Towns is a career 39.7% three-point shooter. Just last season, he shot 42.0%, just 0.1% beneath his career-high.
Yet, Towns is only taking 4.2 threes per game this year, down from 4.7 last season and his lowest average since 2017-18. That year, his starting point guard was Jeff Teague.
This was already confusing when it was happening in October. The fact that it is still happening in March is downright baffling.
Not only is Towns taking fewer threes, but he is hitting them at a low clip, shooting just 36.8%. A big reason for that is what we alluded to earlier; he is being forced to jack up tougher threes because he isn’t getting any natural opportunities within the flow of the offense.
The fact that Towns isn’t spamming threes on a roster that is tailor-made to allow him to do so is just foolish work on the coaching staff’s part, plain and simple.
Not only would it elevate the Knicks’ offensive ceiling, but it would help keep Towns out of foul trouble, reducing the number of reckless drives he must take to force up shots in an offense that is allergic to giving him catch-and-shoot opportunities.
Let KAT cook.
2. Encourage Jalen Brunson to facilitate more
It might be shocking to hear, but Jalen Brunson is the least efficient scorer out of the Knicks’ starters this season, at least according to true shooting percentage.
- OG Anunoby (61.5%)
- Karl-Anthony Towns (61.4%)
- Josh Hart (60.9%)
- Mikal Bridges (58.4%)
- Jalen Brunson (57.9%)
Despite this, and Mike Brown’s promises that his system would facilitate more ball movement, Brunson is actually shooting the ball more frequently than he did last year. Brunson is up to 20.5 field goal attempts per 36 minutes after attempting 18.8 last year (although his free throw attempts have dropped from 7.0 to 5.9).
The math isn’t mathing.
Obviously, context is necessary when discussing true shooting percentage. Brunson takes some of the toughest shots in the NBA. He can get his own shot at any time. While each of his four teammates in the starting lineup has some degree of shot-creation skill, none of them is on Brunson’s level. A big reason why they each shoot so efficiently is that they play with Brunson.
Nonetheless, the Knicks promised to introduce a system that would promote extra ball movement, and yet, their top scorer is actually shooting the ball even more than he was before, while his teammates are not getting enough attempts relative to their excellent scoring efficiency. That just doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Brown and the Knicks’ coaching staff must rework their scheme to feature more opportunities for the other players in the starting lineup. They also must get through to Brunson and encourage him to avoid playing hero-ball as often as he does. Too often, a player like Towns or Anunoby gets hot, only for a barrage of Brunson jumpers to break the flow.
The Knicks are so talented offensively that they still have the league’s third-best offense despite all these issues. Imagine how good they could be if they played with a more optimal strategy.
That exact dilemma is why Knicks fans are so frustrated.
