Game 2: Pistons 100, Knicks 94 — Humiliation
The Knicks couldn’t pull off another comeback and now head to the Motor City with the series even
The New York Knicks lost three of four games to the Detroit Pistons in the regular season. While the vast majority of experts picked them to win this playoff round, many suggested it would be a difficult series. For most of Game 1, it certainly felt like their prognostications were coming true, but those fears were erased by a 21-0 run in the fourth quarter. Suddenly, the Pistons looked like a team with a bunch of inexperienced players trying to close out a playoff game at Madison Square Garden. Suddenly, the Knicks looked like a team with multiple All-Stars. They looked like Wingstop. They looked like a team with a center who won a playoff series against a contender on his own. They looked like great Cam Payne!
In last night’s 100-94 loss, they looked like the other Cam Payne. Nothing seemed to go right in their most humiliating playoff loss since at least the Miami 2023 series. After they seemed to have solved Cade Cunningham in Game 1, he tortured them with drives to the hole and difficult finishes, ending the game with a magnificent 33 points and 12 rebounds on 11-of-21 shooting. Behind what at times seemed a dubious whistle, the Pistons bullied the Knicks, taking 34 free throws to the Knicks’ 19 while grabbing nearly twice as many offensive rebounds. This was the game the Pistons wanted. Physical. Ugly. In the muck.
There is no question, even amongst the Knicks’ loudest haters, which team is more talented. The Knicks have the best player in the series, arguably the best two and five of the six most-talented. But the total is not equal to the sum of the parts, and the Pistons willed themselves to capturing the home-court advantage, even in a game where the Knicks generated more shots (81-74) and threes (35-27) while shooting better less worse from three (29% to 22%). The visitors’ ability to get to the free throw line proved the difference.
Many will point to a lack of toughness from the Knicks. This is what the Pistons do. They are the Seattle Seahawks Legion of Boom: if we foul on every play, you can’t call fouls on every play. On the other end, they got to their spots. The intensity we saw from the Knicks on defense, particularly in Saturday’s 21-0 run but really the whole of Game 1, was more sporadic. They got punched in the mouth.
They did punch back. But too often they just didn’t have the right lineup. They just couldn’t hit that one three that would swing the game. They couldn’t corral that one loose ball to keep it on their side. And so they suffered an embarrassing loss at home to a team they should be able to sweep.
The agonizing question that will face these Knicks – barring an unlikely run to the title – is whether this issue is inherent to the roster or something a new coach could fix. That goes if they lose to the Pistons or beat them, only to follow up with a cursory but comically futile fight against the Boston Celtics (presumably their second-round opponent). Whatever the future may hold, it seems difficult to believe this team, flawed as the construction may be, is not capable of more than . . . this.
Notes
Jalen Brunson added to his historical Knicks’ playoff resume with 37 points on 12-of-27 shooting (just 4-of-12 from three). That 12 is big: he was willing and effective taking pull-up threes in spots he has not always done so. He had some big defensive possessions. But he also had six nasty turnovers and made some baffling decisions. Brunson is trying to figure out the balance between playmaking and scoring, the tightrope he’s always had to walk as both a point guard and a singularly talented scorer. He’s always figured it out, and this isn’t the first uneven start to a playoff series he’s ever had. But as harsh as it feels to judge a guy who is already in the pantheon of Knicks’ greats, that’s the conversation he’s put himself in. A victim of his own success (I’m sure he’d be the first to tell you that’s everything he wants). Clyde. Willis. Bernard. Patrick. Melo. That’s the conversation you’re in. 37 is great, and #11 will be retired whenever you hang it up. But game to game, that’s what we expect. Fair or unfair.
Mikal Bridges missed some big threes, but he was very important in a first half where the Knicks struggled to generate offense and I thought he played a very good defensive game. Cade got his, but when Mikal was matched up on him or other physical wings, he fought hard and forced tough shots. He added three steals, and while his offensive stats won’t show it he was instrumental in keeping the Knicks in the game for most of the second and third quarters.
Karl-Anthony Towns had 10 points on 5-of-11 shooting, a failure on the part of everyone on the Knicks. The Pistons did a good job being physical with him, and some of the tough shots he hit in a spectacular Game 1 performance just didn’t fall. But he only took 11! In the second half, with the Knicks desperately trying to come back, Towns was an afterthought. That can’t happen. He did not get a good whistle; it’s comical to see he took zero free throws, given how the Pistons defend him. But the Knicks didn’t do much to make it happen, either. Towns needs to get the ball. He needs to shoot from three. I’m not one for hard and fast rules, but I’d tell KAT to take three “fuck it” threes every game. There’s a defender close? You’re 7-feet tall. As long as you’re logo or closer, just fucking shoot. You proclaimed yourself the greatest 3-point shooting big ever. We believe you. So do it. Five attempts in two games is not it. 11 attempts in a game from ANYWHERE is definitely not it. Not good enough to beat Boston, let alone Detroit.
The Knicks have a depth problem. Payne was incredible in Game 1, but it’s tough to rely on that every night. Deuce McBride (8 points on 3-of-7 shooting, with a very ugly turnover and some adventurous forays into creation) was the only bench player to score. Landry Shamet was a ghost, and the Knicks could not get Mitchell Robinson the putback and lob attempts he had in the series opener. Deuce is a very capable shooter, but it will be key to play him next to players who can get him easy shots, whether Towns, Bridges, Brunson or anyone else. That has to happen. We saw what he can do last postseason in the role of a very talented shooter who can be a pest on defense. The Knicks simply need to more out of McBride, and the bench in general.
That’s all. After a disappointing split at home, the Knicks will look to regain control of the series Thursday in Detroit, facing a very determined group of upstarts and what is be sure to be a rowdy crowd.
