The Knicks are the East’s top team — so don’t repeat this mistake

The next Knicks coach can take them up a level with one seemingly obvious adjustment

This is a story about failure. Starting with mine.

Originally this was going to be about Mikal Bridges, how the Knicks didn’t attack Tyrese Haliburton enough on defense this year or in 2024, leaving him more energy to kill them on the other end. I dove into playoff box scores (all numbers care of nba.com). In this year’s Game 1 Haliburton was the primary defender against 19 shots. Bridges had the most success against him, going 3-of-6; the rest of the team was 5-of-13. The Knicks lost, freakishly, but here was something promising.

I don’t know what changed, but the Knicks only went at him 19 times in Games 2 and 3 combined. Same with Games 4 and 5. Bridges was shooting just under 50% against Indiana’s Mother Brain and the Knicks were like, “That’s cool. What else is on?” I’d found a whole lotta numbers but was sorely lacking any context. Is targeting someone six times in a game a lot? If not, what is? I needed more.

So I flipped the script, looking at how often Indiana went after Jalen Brunson. While Tom Thibodeau is infamous for seeming about as adventurous as the missionary position, Rick Carlisle is purportedly an offensive guru, a delicate genius. This is where I expected the numbers to make their case. And they did. Only not the case I expected.

In the 2024 series, the Pacers took 61 shots against Brunson (8.7 per) and made 51 percent, not far from Haliburton’s numbers that year. Indiana must’ve liked what they saw, because this year in one fewer game they went after him a bit more – 73 times (12 per), again drilling 51 percent. Surprisingly, that was less than the Knicks targeted Haliburton. If the Pacers weren’t dummies for the rate at which attacked Brunson, why the lingering sense the Knicks let Haliburton off the hook by not going at him more? 

It was when I looked at some of the other Knick star’s numbers that a thread emerged. The Pacers took 114 shots against Karl-Anthony Towns – 19 per game, including an incredible 26 in Game 1. Every sense I have tells me Indiana torched him all series, though the numbers say otherwise: in Games 3, 4 and 5, they shot just 36% against Towns; in the other games that was 56%. 

Still, I come to contexutalize KAT, not to bury him. Until Jayson Tatum was injured, the Celtics went after Towns about as much as the Pacers: 18 shots per game those four games. Maybe I could prove the point about the need to attack more mindfully from a different angle. I’d *felt* during the conference finals that Siakam just kept bullying the Knicks guards, seemingly scoring all of his points against someone four to six inches shorter, i.e. Brunson, Josh Hart, Miles McBride, Landry Shamet. I was willing to consider this was more my fandom speaking to me than reality. And I was right: I’d been wrong.

The most shots Siakam took against any Knick was 24, not Brunson or Deuce but OG Anunoby. I dug a little deeper – my brain cannot recall a single instance of Siakam taking on someone his own size – and there’s a bit of a caveat: nearly half those tries were threes, and while I’m not going to dig into the film to prove it I’d swear on your kid’s life there weren’t too many times Siakam was facing up Anunoby from 25 feet out and busting out off-the-dribble treys; I imagine many of those threes involved OG as the nearest defender, more likely rotating to him than someone Siakam had to beat one-on-one. The second-most shots Siakam took, 22, were against Towns, 20 of which were inside the arc. He’s no flat-track bully. 

But something kept pulling me back to that number, that seven. Siakam getting seven shots up over Brunson in six games. Bridges taking 32 versus Haliburton. Some truth was in there, triangulating between all the numbers. Then it hit me.

In 2024, the Knicks’ primary attacker against the 6-foot-5, 185-pound Haliburton was Donte DiVincenzo, who took 20 shots against him in those seven games. Donte is 6-foot-4, just about 200 pounds (this is what basketball-reference says; how would I know?). His greatest physical attribute is probably his movement. DiVo’s not bigger or stronger or faster than a lot of guys, but he’s a chronic man in motion. 

Haliburton doesn’t care. At all. Dude literally runs like a deer. Sweet Tooth is based on him. The Pacers may be the best-conditioned team in the East; they run half-marathons in their sleep. You gonna make him run around some? Whatever.

You wanna slow that man down, get him down in the post. Back him in. Make it a point every game. It’s not just about the shot attempts, or maybe getting some fouls on him. It’s about doing whatever it takes to deplete as much of his energy doing other things so there’s not quite as much for when the ball’s in his hand. Imagine Haliburton being 5% more tired at the end of Game 1 than he was. Maybe the buzzer-beat bounces out. Maybe the Knicks reach the Finals. Would they still have fired Thibs if they had? 

This year, Haliburton’s primary attacker was Bridges, 6-foot-6 and about five pounds heavier than DiVo. Mikal definitely took Haliburton down low more than his Villanova mate, but I don’t imagine Haliburton was in the training room after games wearing extra ice packs. Hmm. Who would be a bigger body the Knicks could unleash on him? Anyone? 

In Game 1, OG took five shots against Haliburton. Know how many he took the rest of the series, despite being three inches taller and 50-plus pounds bigger? Go on. Guess. Dredge your memory banks. Close your eyes; feel for it. If you’ve read this far, odds are you watched most if not all of the series. What number feels right? ‘Cuz the truth def don’t.

Two. 

That’s it. No más. Just. Two. You could bump into Haliburton on the street and do nearly as much work on him. 

As long as the Knicks are built around Brunson and Towns, they’re going to have to win a title with their offense. They’re like Antaeus, who fought Hercules, who nobody had ever beaten because they didn’t know his strength came from the earth. Touching it made him literally invincible. But top-heavy becomes imbalance against heavyweights. For Antaeus, that meant Hercules lifting him off the ground and holding him up as he weakened, crushing him to death in a bear hug. 

For the Knicks, it meant a month of Boston and Indiana running seemingly every single action at Brunson and Towns. That’s going to be the reality of every big series they play from here on out – and as if there wasn’t already more pressure around the Knicks going into any season than there’s been since 1994, Haliburton’s Achilles injury in Game 7 of the Finals means as of today, they’re the favorites to win the East. 

Haliburton, Tatum and Damian Lillard are all out all next season. (Remember when Adam Silver said there’s no correlation between players’ over-exerting and greater risk of injuries? Good times.) The Bucks weren’t contending even if Lillard were healthy; the Celtics and Pacers will probably both be annoyingly plucky next year and win more than expected, but are unlikely to win more than a first-round series. The Pistons and Magic will rise, as vile weeds do whenever a garden suddenly has real estate available, but I can’t see either going from 0-100 in one year. The Cavs? If they ever get past Game 5 of the second round, call me.

More than ever the season is now a team sprint; we know OG can carry the baton when asked. We saw it when Brunson missed most of March injured and we saw it more than once in playoffs. The Knicks are never going to beat the Thunder, the Rockets or the Pacers in the future if those teams can leave Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or Fred Van Vleet or Haliburton on OG freakin’ Anunoby knowing there’s no cost. It’s not even just about OG. It’s about creating and exploiting as many advantages as possible on that end, for every Knick on the floor. 

The new champs, the runners-up and last year’s champs all beat you as a team, as one. Tom Thibodeau’s offense was one of the league’s best last year, but it was five fingers. Fingers leave all kinds of open space, all kinds of gaps. The next Knicks coach needs to turn that into a fist.