The Knicks have reached the midway point of this roller coaster season.
Thanks to Malik Beasley's 3-point shooting and Cade Cunningham's dominant offense, the Pistons escaped with a 124-119 victory over MSG on Monday night, exposing the Knicks' defensive flaws.
“Offense wasn't the problem tonight,” Jalen Brunson said. “Defensively, we gave them a lot of confidence.”
With about 40 seconds left, the Knicks double-teamed Cunningham, who was hurt on the night, and got an open tree with two passes around the perimeter to Beasley, giving the Pistons a four-point advantage.
A similar play then unfolded as the Knicks doubled Cunningham with six seconds left and the Pistons leading by two points. This allowed Beasley to make another dagger 3-pointer and get the final bucket of the game.
“We've got to get better defensively,” Josh Hart said, pausing as if he was about to show his emotions. “Yeah, I need to be better.”
The Knicks (26-15) are still on pace for 52 wins, but they've lost five of their last seven games, which feels bad.
“We're losing the game, but we feel like we shouldn't have,” Hart said. “So we have to understand that. We're only halfway through the season at this point. We can't do anything about the first half, so we have to focus on the second half. But whatever team we want to be at the end of the year. We need to start fixing these.”
The Knicks tried to ride Brunson in the fourth quarter, but the captain responded by scoring 12 of his 31 points in the final nine minutes. However, the Pistons could not be stopped until the end, especially Cunningham, who scored 36 points in just 32 minutes.
“He had a great game,” Tom Thibodeau said. “That's the way he plays, he puts a lot of stress on you and everyone has to stick together. Beasley had hot hands, so we have to get there. yeah.”
In other words, the Knicks didn't rotate their defense quickly enough on passes from Cunningham to Tim Hardaway Jr. to Beasley on both key possessions.
“And Beasley, who was shooting great all night, had two easy shots,” Brunson said.
These aren't the Pistons of old, and the Knicks, who were on a 16-game winning streak against Detroit before this season, suffered a reminder. Thibodeau's paper-thin bench won 46-13.
Thibodeau repeatedly said, “We have more than enough,” without offering much evidence of a shortage of military reserves.
Meanwhile, Karl-Anthony Towns played a total of 43 minutes as Thibodeau decided not to use a backup center. Towns was also hobbled in the first half when he injured his thumb and hit his hand on the backboard while attempting a layup. He wore black plastic wrap around his right thumb, often wincing in pain and botching a few shots, but still recorded 26 points and 12 rebounds.
After an embarrassment last season under head coach Monty Williams, the Pistons (21-19) have been on an upward trend, having won nine of their past 11 games entering Monday. This was the result of development and offseason upgrades, with J.B. Bickerstaff taking over as coach and general manager Trajan Langdon adding a shooting veteran to complement Cunningham.
Detroit applied those improvements Monday night. The Knicks are going in a different direction.
“There's still a lot of things we can improve on, but we have to work hard,” Thibodeau said.
