Kristian Winfield: The Knicks have an issue– and it’s
INDIANAPOLIS– The Knicks have a problem. In truth, they have 2. The very first is the most pressing: Their two-best players are bad protectors. Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns are all-world scorers. They are two of the very best offensive players at their position the game has actually ever seen. But they are hunted on defense so often– therefore surgically– that it makes it near difficult to play them in tandem long stretches at a time versus an offense as powerful as the Pacers.
The second issue? The Knicks’ best stretches in the Eastern Conference Finals against a Pacers team now up 3-1 have actually included Towns on the flooring without Brunson, the 36th captain in franchise history, the very player who powered the Knicks to consecutive 50-win seasons and their very first conference finals look in the last 23 years. Since when Brunson is off the floor, the Knicks have no option but to move the ball to generate offense. And in those circumstances– Towns in, Brunson out– the Knicks seek their All-Star big male in methods they do not with their beginners on the floor.
The All-Star duo of Towns and Brunson entered Video game 4 against the Pacers with a playoff net score of minus-4.1, or they were outscored by 4.1 points for every single 100 ownerships they invested in the flooring together. On Tuesday, the Knicks, for the second game in a row, were most competitive against the Pacers in minutes they surrounded Towns with four capable protectors.
By the 5:42 mark of the fourth quarter, Brunson had a net score of minus-20. Towns boasted a net score of minus-one. And Delon Wright– who has consistently ranked among the league leaders in deflections as one of the NBA’s more active perimeter protectors– boasted a positive net rating of plus-11 in nine minutes of play.
Yet in the 4th quarter, Wright was no place to be discovered. And instead, head coach Tom Thibodeau returned to his beginners. Not the new-look starters with Towns and Mitchell Robinson creating a clear size benefit– but the old beginners who had actually been outscored at a rapid rate during these playoffs. And he stuck with Josh Hart– and Hart (12 points, 11 rebounds) did fill the stat sheet– despite the fact that he turned the ball over five times and committed a number of unneeded fouls before disqualifying himself with 1:44 left in the 4th quarter.
Include it all up and you do not get enough. Not versus a Pacers group that’s proven to be far from the fluke they were written-off as after pulling away from the injury-riddled Knicks in Video game 7 of the 2nd round last year. The Knicks were the healthiest team in all of basketball this season, and the players on the flooring in these conference finals were the very ones they wager might do the job this time around.
They were wrong.
And now, the Knicks could deal with some uncomfortable concerns during the offseason– an offseason now quickly approaching for a team that finds itself in a 3-1 hole only 4.4 percent of teams in playoff history have ever return from in a series.
The Knicks were constructed to beat the Boston Celtics. They put together two of the very best 3-and-D wings (MIkal Bridges and OG Anunoby) then traded for Towns to create a five-out offending system many teams in the league deploy.
However their vital defects are simply that– vital, and while it’s easy to gloss over the shortcomings during the regular season, playoff basketball is all about winning on the margins. About exposing a team’s most significant weaknesses. About picking at a scab over and over till it bleeds a lot from the exact same spot.
There was bloodshed on the Gainbridge Fieldhouse floorings late Tuesday night, literally and figuratively, for a team that didn’t simply lose the game. They might have likewise lost Towns, who bumped knees with Aaron Nesmith late in the fourth quarter and gutted through a noticeable limp the remainder of the game before hobbling into the locker space after the last buzzer sounded.
This series is not over. If anybody can return from down 3-1, it’s the group that plays its finest basketball when its backs protest the wall, when it deals with a 20-point deficit, or when it needs to look itself in the mirror after a disappointing loss.
But what do the Knicks see when they search in the mirror? Do they see a group that can weather the storm the Pacers have summoned in this series?
Or do they see what the rest of the world sees? A team whose shortcomings are baked into the fiber of its lineup. A group that has to play among its two-best players at a time to have a shot at decreasing a Pacer offense that has exposed the Knicks greatest issue.
A problem they have actually run out of time to resolve.
Originally Released: May 27, 2025 at 11:11 PM EDT