The most telling comment of the Eastern Conference Finals came from Pacers coach Rick Carlisle after Game 3, just after his team blew a 20-point lead and let the Knicks back in the series. Much of the Knicks’ second-half surge that night came while All-NBA point guard Jalen Brunson was on the bench due to foul trouble.
Carlisle said the comeback was due to the Knicks having their “better defensive players” on the court.
In what was a season to be celebrated, defense was always the issue in New York. Knicks players are on their way to Cancun today because their core players couldn’t guard well enough when it came time to slow the space-and-pace Pacers. That all started with Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns. For the entire Eastern Conference Finals, Brunson was -26 on a Knicks team that was -11 total.
It begs the question: Can the Knicks take that next step with those two as their best players?
One can argue that after this last series, OG Anunoby is the Knicks’ second-best player. However you choose to rank the roster, the Knicks likely bring back their top seven players from this season have the taxpayer mid-level exception and other moves to add some talent.
Can Leon Rose and the front office add a couple more quality rotation players who can defend, then get Thibodeau to trust them and play the bench next season?
Successful Knicks season and missed opportunity
This was the best Knicks season in decades — it was their first Eastern Conference Finals since 2000 and Madison Square Garden was electric. Timothée Chalamet spent so much time with Ben Stiller that he might appear in the next season of “Succession.” New York had the fifth most wins in the league and was one of the final four teams standing.
This season was also a missed opportunity. The Knicks were healthy and slayed the Goliath of the East in Boston — a series where New York was the better team even before Jayson Tatum’s injury. There was a path to the Finals and maybe a ring.
That path should still be there next season. In a more wide-open East (with Boston’s Tatum and Milwaukee’s…
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