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Knicks 123, Clippers 111: Knicks end skid, snip the Clips – Posting & Toasting
Karl-Anthony Towns’ big fourth quarter keys Knicks’ win over Clippers: ‘The way he played tonight, it’s what we needed’ – SNY
Knicks’ Karl-Anthony Towns Reveals Meaning of Jordyn Woods’ Engagement Ring in Video – BleacherReport
Can Knicks fix defense internally or do they need to make move before NBA trade deadline? – The Athletic – The New York Times
How to watch Clippers vs. Knicks: TV channel and streaming options for January 7 – The New York Times
Knicks Bulletin: ‘I made some shots. I didn’t make a lot of them’ – Posting & Toasting
Knicks snap four-game losing streak with 123-111 win over Clippers – SNY
Knicks Fight out of their losing Streak | Is this team Championship Caliber | Luxury Craft Whiskey – Knick of Time
Problem(s) Solved? | KFS X’s & O’s | Knicks Film School – Knicks Film School
Knicks Lineup Debate: What Happens When Josh Hart & Landry Shamet Return? | KFTV – Knicks Fan TV
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43 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2026.01.09)”
Sort of interesting story about most improved (and worst) shooters compared to last year on NBA.com (‘Who are this season’s most improved shooters?’). Not surprisingly, Deuce shows up as fourth biggest jump in effective FG%, and tenth biggest jump in 3PT%. Interestingly, Clarkson is the other Knick in there, with the ninth biggest jump in FG% in the paint. He’s been pretty good there, but I wouldn’t have guessed it was any big jump from what I knew about him before (which wasn’t a lot).
Then there’s ‘Introduction to Gravity’ as a new metric to determine how influential you are to other teams’ defenses, which seems something of an invasion of privacy in some way. Are they tracking me the same way when I walk to the grocery store?
‘The NBA’s optical tracking system uses 3D pose detection to track 29 points on every player’s body, 60 times per second. Those detailed body-position coordinates fuel the Machine Learning model, allowing it to capture every movement and spatial relationship on the floor.
The Gravity model compares the defensive pressure a player would receive on average based on the location of the ball and their position on the floor (Expected Defensive Pressure Score) to the pressure they actually draw (Defensive Pressure Score). The model learns how defenders typically behave in each scenario, and measures deviations that signal defensive adjustments. The result is a Gravity differential that measures how much attention a player pulls from the defense beyond expectation.’
“serious question: are we the only team whether contending or not who has this issue with their two best players being so bad at defense off the top of my head i couldnt think of any but its not like i ran through the entire league in my head either”
I think ptmilo covered some excellent ground in regard to this question yesterday in elaborating the Brunson-Towns conundrum, which is the root of this question, I assume. My most applicable takeaway is that it’s really freakin’ hard to win a championship with two sub-par defensive players on the court. Sooner or later, you will run into a team that can tilt the scales enough to pull out 4 games in a 7 game series.
Two notable somewhat recent exceptions are the LeBron-Kyrie-Love Cavs and the Jokic-Murray Nuggets. And as pt’s musings suggests, they overcame their defensive deficiencies by having, if not an elite offense, a truly generational player tilting the scales away from their defense, and even then they needed some very good fortune if you want to pick nits.
I would also argue that neither Kyrie-Love nor Jokic-Murray were not as defensively detrimental as Brunson-Towns, in part because the game has evolved in a way that makes playing defense more difficult, especially for bigs, but also just because of who they are.
This Knicks team is built more along the lines of the D’Antoni Suns with a pairing of Nash and prime Amar’e…or even our own Knicks 2012 with Melo and Amar’e. Sooner or later you run into a team that puts just as much offense and better defense on the floor. I believe that’s what happened to us vs. the Pacers last year…their playoff defense was very underrated based on their issues during the regular season, and a narrative about Hali’s D that I think was way overblown….he actutally used his length and anticipation quite well and needed less help than Brunson.
This is all “educated conjecture” so I welcome rebuttals, but that’s how I currently see it. It will take an extraordinary amount of luck for us to win it all with Brunson and Towns as centerpieces.
I know it is a counterfactual history but the 2007 the Suns easily could have been champs if Horry hadn’t croschecked A’mare into the dasher with 20 seconds left in game 4 of the semis.
Kevin Love was basically unplayable against the Warriors and was benched plenty of times
I assume they’ve always done this in less sophisticated ways at a smaller scale, even if it’s just tailing some random shoppers at a few different stores.
Would not surprise me if they’ve had large scale data from security cameras for a while. They probably can’t determine how low your nuts hang on a given night based off your gait, like the NBA likely does for their players, but computerized tracking has been going on for quite a bit now.
The NBA players get compensated millions of dollars for the invasion, but you and I don’t. Unfortunately, the protections for personal privacy against nongovernmental entities, in the US at least, are lacking. Even the American law enforcement are allowed to use Palantir, which strikes me as extremely problematic.
There is a much larger area of privacy law due to the insane level of tracking that computers allow, but that’s heavily focused on online privacy. The privacy professionals are raising awareness about offline activity too, but it’s just not deemed as important.
whats different now is the sheer number of cameras as reported by ai:
You’re likely caught on public cameras dozens, if not hundreds, of times daily, with estimates suggesting Americans see 75 to over 200 cameras per day, especially with widespread CCTV, smart doorbells, and dashcams; a Londoner might see over 300, while an average American is captured around 34 times a day (238/7), though this varies greatly with location and lifestyle.
No need to discuss the defense because we all agree.
However, EGO is definitely a problem. You just aren’t going to get that information from a stat sheet. It’s only by very careful observation of the changes in Brunson’s playing style depending on who the opposing star player is and how he’s doing that you can see it.
It’s also in part related to Towns as well as OG and Bridges disappearing acts. That’s why I brought it up.
There are times in a game when the Knicks are struggling and we really need a basket. Brunson will correctly take it upon himself to try get a basket and stop the bleeding becuase he’s far and away the best equipped to create something and score.
However, there are also times when an opposing player is going off (especially a G) where Brunson goes into the same mode. But it’s an EGO related mano y mano mode we’ve seen from super elite stars like Jordan vs Clyde Drexler (or anyone else that said the wrong thing to him lmao), Bird and Dominique Wilkins etc.. For that period, it’s less about the team as it is about saying to that other player, “I’m going to outgun you”. When he goes into that mode, everyone else is not involved. It doesn’t happen every game. You can see how much he adjusted back in our last win. But it happens and it’s a negative impacting others.
There are almost always multiple things involved. That’s true of Mikal’s OG’s and Towns’s occasional disappearing act. But one of the contributing factors is Brunson.
Towns is simply not a shot creating scoring wing or guard. He scores in limited ways. Yes, he’s better at C against a C. I’ve been saying that for awhile also. But you also have to get him the ball. Towns is not verbally complaining about his adjustments for no reason. He’s sayng that because he’s not always getting the ball when and where he’s effective and that accounts for his up and down games even if the overall stats remain OK. Put a lie detector on him and ask if he likes playing next to Kolek more for his own scoring ability. lmao
RE: KAT and Brunson on defense:
I still believe KAT can be a more disciplined defender. He just needs to trust his size and play defense with his feet more. And I don’t really think Brunson is a bad defender. It’s probably more of a “pick a side of the ball to focus your energy on” issue. I’ve seen Brunson make plenty of defensive plays when he’s locked in. He’s already a smart, sneaky defender. But he carries a load of responsibility on offense. I don’t think either one of them would be a plus defender, but if they played closer to average consistently- it would improve the team defense so much. Thankfully, we have enough good defenders to field a top 12ish defense to go with our offense. And that’s enough. They just need to get and stay on the same page
Aside from looking in the mirror, winning games will likely help with the vibes. The team is flawed. But it is invited to the afterparty after some foot massages in the mezzanine of course. Coach has accumulated quite a bit of data on who what and where to put on the court. Kolek is a good surprise. He seems ready to help. More to come I gues. It’s getting close to about where the team needs to commit to fighting through the tougher matchups and figuring out how to let luck prevail (keep the game in Brunson distance for the final minute or two). We ain’t the best but but it’s about winning.
One of my biggest concerns about this team — which is a league-wide phenomenon, honestly — is sustained excellence. When we’re hitting on all cylinders I honestly think we beat anybody. The problem is we do that for about one quarter, maybe two, a game.
I feel like there was maybe one game (and I forget which one) where we could say they played with sustained excellence start to finish.
Question regarding KAT and extending him.
Where is it preordained that if we did extend him, Leon would give him the max numbers of years at the max amount of money?
Leon got Brunson and Mikal to resign for less. KAT getting a max extension would cripple the franchise and the new CBA has really changed the calculus on signing guys like KAT who are really good – top 30ish players – but not franchise players like Luka, SGA, Jokic, etc. I think Leon knows this and if he does extend KAT, it will be for maybe 3 or 4 years max in the 20 to 30 million range. He’s not gonna give him 60 million a year. And if KAT truly thinks he deserves that in this new age of austerity, he will not resign with us. Leon isn’t going to negotiate against himself because no one in the league is gonna give KAT that kind of money.
The KAT extension could be another reason why he just might not care that much this season. Players aren’t going all out for a team they might not be with long term
Etw, why would KAT sabotage his value by not caring or playing hard? If anything, he would want to make it more likely that another team would offer a max extension.
hard to imagine KAT’s next contract being anything below an average salary in the low 50’s…
some team will pay that…that 60 million dollar player option is brutal, if he does stay, hopefully there’s a way to re-work that number…
Anyway, the issue is that KAT is locked in for the next two seasons at the max. That makes building around him difficult in that window and after that Brunson might start to decline.
Bottom line: if he’s not the answer, he urgently needs to be salary dumped while he might have at least some perception of near-max value. That’s what Minny did, and they don’t miss him one bit. Just like the Hawks won’t miss Trae one bit. We won’t miss KAT.
Teams know KATS strengths and weaknesses. When he becomes a free agent I don’t see any team giving him the Max.
Timberwolves haven’t missed KAT, but they haven’t improved either. Meanwhile the Knicks got the farthest they have in forever with KAT on the roster.
God help me, but I’m going with Strat over Milo on this one. The numbers in the aggregate support Milo’s general position, but with this team, KAT has been so insanely inconsistent game to game that it’s hard to believe ego isn’t part of it. Those disappearing acts are just too strange – the ones where he goes 1-7 or whatever. And it is an observable feature that JB sometimes decides to take over when the opposing guard is putting up points. I kind of like it – but I understand why other players could become less engaged because of it.
No surprise and doubt he has any market
I was surprised when the report about Giannis trade talks in the off season came out early on. That was not very Leon. His ego is involved or he wouldn’t be justifying his play with public discussions about the system and how it has negatively impacted him. If there’s a bridge back to like hitting threes and grabbing rebounds and being wonderful scoring the ball great. If not, his ego will get in the way of his success on the court and off when he’s negotiating. Stranger things have happened.
I applaud the ego that has made Brunson a late game assassin.
The issue with Kat on D is his defensive IQ and discipline. IQ as in too many times he seems to be in the opposite place he should be, and discipline as in he’s 7 feet tall, and instead of just putting his arms up is in love with swiping for the ball.
Jalen’s largest issue on D is is height. Players can more easily just shoot over him or post him up.
Towns has the more correctable issue, but year after year, not much changes. He needs to make up for his lack of lateral movement with extra preparation and anticipation but rarely does that seem to be the case. He also does seem to be more aware, when he’s involved offensively.
Jalen is the league’s leading Q1 scorer – I’d flip the script, go more to KaT to start the game to get him going, Jalen increases aggressiveness when Kat goes to bench in the 1st quarter.
For that to be successful consistently though Kat also needs to work on his post up game, his post ups are surprisingly obvious and weak for a player of his caliber and size, which limits the ability for the team to give the ball to him and let him go get a bucket against defenses that are aggressive with him and trap PnRs
Something that the KFS X&Os guys mentioned in their recent podcast kind of stuck with me. Because the Knicks are trying as much as possible to hide Brunson, he is somewhat being exposed to more off ball actions (rather than guarding his man 1-on-1). And he can get lost in space, leading others to have to cover for him, and creating holes. They were wondering whether living with Brunson defending 1-on-1 might not be a better solution, even if it’s not a great matchup (but it’s less likely to lead to an open 3, for example). There’s no perfect way to hide him, but it does feel like the defense is too often in a blender, leading to easy penetration.
Agreed on all points. That 6’3″ wingspan really hurts Jalen on contests. Other than that, I think his defensive instincts are definitely there. Especially with his Dad being more of a defender and Jalen being brought up essentially by both Thibs and Wright
I really want to see Ja go to the Wiz. What a nutty backcourt that’d be…
Btunson’s height and short wingspan surely doesn’t help, but it is not the main problem. There are tons of guards his height and with unremarkable wingspans who are (or have been) plus defenders: Chris Paul, Fred VanVleet, Kyle Lowry, Jamal Shead, Jevon Carter
There are also short guys who are not “good” defenders but aren’t super-detrimental, like Payton Pritchard, Jordan McLaughlin, TJ McConnell, and recently, our very own Tyler Kolek. Jose Alvarado might fall into this class as well.
This is sort of a “eye-test” list so maybe I’m missing some data, but the larger point remains: Brunson’s defensive deficiencies are not entirely, or even mostly about his height or wingspan.
Brunson isn’t just short, he’s also very, very slow for an NBA guard. It’s a lot to overcome for him to be adequate on that side regardless of his instincts.
Was it ptmilo who said a couple of years ago that Brunson was actually not slow at all?
Of those other short PGs mentioned, none (closest is CP in his prime) are responsible for the amount of usage and offense that Brunson needs to create for the Knicks.
Height and strength help b/c you can exert a bit less energy on defense and still have tank left over to carry the offense as the primary offensive contributor. We need to save him some energy on that end.
I also think over the years since CP and Lowry were in their prime two things have changed since the early 2000s – 1/ Point guards are more often natural scorers and leading scorers for their teams, and 2/ point guards and guards in general are closer to 6′ 5 on average. Brunson’s PG counterparts include Cade Cunningham, Shai, Haliburton, Lamelo Ball, Harden, etc, so he ends up guarding a less offensive threat but who is still a tall uber athletic SG or SF. Brunson can play better D but he’ll always be limited by both his size, and offensive role, and the guy’s he’s guarding.
That means that the Centers and other dudes around him need to more than carry their weight on that end, just like Brunson more than carries his weight offensively.
The theory that Brunson is the source of KAT’s disappointing offensive season seems to have a big “last season KAT had one his best offensive seasons ever” flaw, no?
I don’t mean to be snarky and by my eye test, KAT does seem to play better with a true pass-first guy in Kolek (+16.7 for the pairing in 283 minutes, for the very little that’s worth, though that’s largely because they’ve been great defensively).
But my eye test is also aligned with pt’s observation that KAT is somewhat point guard agnostic because he’s not a quick decision maker. This season in particular he always seems to make the shoot/drive decision I don’t agree with from the top of the key.
So my stab at it is it’s some kind of mental discomfort, which he’s alluded to a number of times.
Glass half-full: the fact that KAT has been underwhelming this year is a source of upside!
Some KAT stats with Kolek on vs off:
Assisted 2PT FGM Rate
On: 0.617
Off: 0.484
3PT%
On: 0.414
Off: 0.333
2PT%
On: 0.534
Off: 0.520
Usage
On: 27.1
Off: 25.8
The samples are small and I wouldn’t make much of it, but since Kolek is in the rotation anyway I think it’s a prima facie case for making sure the non-Brunson minutes with KAT are basically all with Kolek.
I think Brunson’s first step is pretty quick, but the rest of his game is pretty slow
“Of those other short PGs mentioned, none (closest is CP in his prime) are responsible for the amount of usage and offense that Brunson needs to create for the Knicks.”
Is your premise that if Brunson didn’t have to do as much on O he’d be as good as those guys on D? Sorry, I’m not buying it.
“Height and strength help b/c you can exert a bit less energy on defense and still have tank left over to carry the offense as the primary offensive contributor. We need to save him some energy on that end.”
I disagree with this as well, as preventing points is just as important as scoring them. Even so, assuming that Brunson is coasting on D for swaths of the game, this implies that he can turn it up defensively in crunch time because of all the energy he conserved. Is that what you see? Not me.
“I also think over the years since CP and Lowry were in their prime two things have changed since the early 2000s – 1/ Point guards are more often natural scorers and leading scorers for their teams, and 2/ point guards and guards in general are closer to 6′ 5 on average. Brunson’s PG counterparts include Cade Cunningham, Shai, Haliburton, Lamelo Ball, Harden, etc, so he ends up guarding a less offensive threat but who is still a tall uber athletic SG or SF. Brunson can play better D but he’ll always be limited by both his size, and offensive role, and the guy’s he’s guarding.”
If this is the case (which I don’t think it is) , we’d be best served by trading Brunson and investing his salary into players better suited for today’s game.
“That means that the Centers and other dudes around him need to more than carry their weight on that end, just like Brunson more than carries his weight offensively.”
Sure. The question is, is this mix of players the right one to cover up for his defensive deficiencies, or his need to conserve energy on that end? Doesn’t seem so…
jalen isn’t slow in the conventional sense. he is a reasonably fast sprinter, deceptively so. and it’s true that height and wingspan aren’t an automatic death sentence when it comes to point guard defense. FVV, for example, is basically just a torso and has average speed, but has been a damn effective defender. these things do matter, especially length. but a lot of things matter.
we’ve seen zillions of examples in the nba of the fact that the microskills (i.e. traits that are less obvious than size and speed) required to excel as a POA defender are much more nuanced and activity specific than you might expect going in. and they don’t correlate well at all to seemingly rhyming traits on offense, like a quick first step or incredible footwork or elite deceleration. i think of the difference as similar to the robotics idea that model predictive control (offense) is a very different set of pathways than feedback control under adversarial perturbation (defense). rapidly flipping your hips in a wide stance while maintaining balance is extremely hard to learn, and those skills don’t really show up on offense. jalen is not good at them.
jalen also does not have a good hand-to-ball timing knack. one of the things that made cp3 deadly is that his hands had sonar. if you can’t be a real threat to the handle of an opponent AND you are short and stubby AND you aren’t a gifted hip flipper / reactor, you are in big trouble as a defender. i don’t think jalen’s motor is bad relative to a high usage guard (though it’s far from guys like maxey). and he is obviously balls to the wall in his willingness to step in front of a charging zion like a weeble wobble and wink at his life insurance guy. but he’s working off of a tough base.
Well, that answers that once again on the whole Anthony “If Healthy” Davis matter, via Shams:
Zman, clarifications – my premise is not that if Brunson had more energy he’d be an all-star defender, what I’m saying is that Brunson is challenged by physicality, if he went all out on every play on defense, it would impact his energy on OFFENSE, where he is elite. Just like OG takes on greater than his fair share of defensive responsibilities on defense, Brunson does the same on offense. The issue in terms of championship success is that we have Towns and Brunson — the issue isn’t Brunson, that’s my point. I think we could create a championship team around Brunson. Every player has pros and cons – I’d take Brunson’s cons every day of the week for his pros. This is not the case for me with Towns. Net, net I think we will eventually need to trade Towns to be a legit championship contender.
Anthony Davis is out again. I wonder if there is medical test/body scan that can determine if an athlete is more brittle, has weak joints etc…
I’m a pround long term Kolek bull. There were and continue to be questions about his defense and ability to hit outside shots consistently, but he’s one hell of a good PG. If he gets the rest of it down consistently over the next year or two, I’ll be arguing to start him at PG and play Brunson off ball. Brunson scores with high efficiency at high usage in every way. Kolek will never do that. But Kolek has the skills to run an offense and make other players better. I’m all for giving Kolek as many minutes with Towns as we can as long as he shoots at a tolerable level and defends well enough to prevent me from whining.
I hear you, Noble, and I do generally agree with Milo that a portion of KAT’s difficulties/limitations are PG agnostic. But he’s also been MIA in more than a few games this year, and the question is whether it’s all MB’s systems or whether JB going Hero Ball had something to do with it. Given the occasional disinterest of OG and Mikal, as well as the in infallible eye test, I’d have to think that JB is at least some of it.
Look at this way.
This season we were supposed to have a more balanced attack with better ball movement and a less Brunson centric offense. We also added offense on the bench. Yet somehow Brunson is scoring more PPG in fewer minutes and his usage is a tick higher than last year.
I’ll agree that there are players that are more dependent on good PG play than others, but everyone’s efficiency is helped a little by good QB play and good ball movement even if their points/36 goes down a little through that balance.
Some of Towns struggles may just be noise or under reported injuries, but some nights he’s not getting the ball at all, let alone in good spots for him personally to score. If it’s not Brunson and it’s not the coach, who is it?
Seems like you found a new handle, Strat
We’ve all know what Mikal and OG are capable of and we saw it really well last year when Brunson was out and OG went on the best run of his entire career. They are not elite scorers. There are going to be nights when the matchup or defense makes it tougher on them or someone else has it going so they are less involved. But they are both very good. Yet both of them have nights where they totally vanish (much like Towns). IMO, when the ball is not moving, they are not involved enough and that’s when they stand around and nothing happens.
I’m coming in late to the discussion, but I have a different opinion on Towns. I think some of his ups and downs are matchup related combined with the different offensive scheme the Knicks have this year. This year he’s always starting on the perimeter and either driving or shooting. From my eye test, he seems to drive more than shoot. But if an opposing team has personnel to stop the drive, he is not as effective and has a down night.
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