The Knicks have had the NBA’s best defense since they gave up 137 points to the NBA Draft Lottery-bound Indiana Pacers on Feb. 10.
The Knicks were their most upbeat in defeat this season following their 103-100 loss to the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder in the second leg of a back-to-back on Wednesday.
There’s been a lot to smile about for a Knicks team that’s re-established itself among the league’s elite following a skid featuring nine losses in 11 games to begin the 2026 calendar year.
A significantly improved defense is at the top of the list for a team stringing together more stops now than they’ve generated all season.
“It gives us a lot of confidence. It’s put us in a good trend. We’ve got to continue on that way,” said team captain Jalen Brunson. “It’s what we work on, and it’s something we’ve been stressing, and it’s been showing when the lights are on, but obviously behind closed doors, we’re working at it. We’re talking through everything. We’ve just got to help that convert into wins.”
The Knicks have held five of their last six opponents — the reigning champs being the lone exception — to under 100 points. They entered Friday’s late-night matchup against the Denver Nuggets, the first leg of a five-game road trip, allowing a league-low 103.4 points per 100 possessions over their last nine games.
The Knicks (40-23) entered the Nuggets game winners in 15 of their last 20 games. They held opponents to 103 or fewer points in 15 of those 20 games.
“Our guys are trying to be physical without fouling and they’re doing a pretty good job with it. We’re still gonna get better in that area, but it’s been a process. We made a switch defensively several months ago and that was a process, but the guys, they’re pretty comfortable with what we’re doing right now, and they know exactly what they should be doing out there,” said head coach Mike Brown.
“Again, it didn’t happen with one practice. It didn’t happen because a switch got turned on. It just gradually happened, and I’ve said it before: That’s what the regular season is about. You tinker with this, you tinker with that, you try to get a little bit better here and there and hopefully at the end of the season you’re fairly comfortable and you can start trending upwards.”
The Knicks now own the sixth-best defense despite ranking just 18th through their first 43 games of the season. The turnaround is consistent with the low point of the year following New York’s 16-point loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Jan. 19. It was the low point of the season for a championship-contending team on a nine-game skid just two weeks ahead of the Feb. 5 NBA trade deadline.
“[It happened with] time. Just continuing to watch film, having practice, having shootaround, talking about it, walking through it, drilling it. It wasn’t one thing or one practice or a light being switched on. It’s what should happen over the course of a season,” Brown continued. “You should get better as you go along as everybody has embraced the process. And with our group, everybody in that locker room has embraced the process, and that’s what makes this team pretty special is they’re in it to try to win it and they know it’s not gonna happen like that.
“They know at the beginning of the year, they’ll probably [fluctuate between playing good and bad], and they know once the All-Star Break happens, hopefully you get to a point where there’s some comfort with everybody and everything that we’re doing. And we’re able to continue to find [that comfort].”
The Knicks now rank among the league’s top defenses, trailing only the Houston Rockets, Miami Heat, San Antonio Spurs, Detroit Pistons and Thunder in the department. They rank top-five in opponent turnovers over their last nine games.
There’s icing on the cake, too: The Knicks are defending well in games Mitchell Robinson is missing due to load management.
Robinson is the Knicks’ defensive anchor, but his twice surgically-repaired left ankle renders him largely ineligible to compete in both legs of back-to-back games. It also places an invisible cap on the minutes the Knicks’ best rim protector can play, and Robinson tweaked his ankle in Tuesday’s victory over the Toronto Raptors.
Brown said he’s comfortable throwing second-year big man Ariel Hukporti into the mix as the team’s second center off the bench. He also said he’s willing to roll with OG Anunoby or Jeremy Sochan at the five when Robinson isn’t available in the rotation. Rookie Mohamed Diawara’s emergence gives the Knicks more size and versatility in the front court, too.
If the Knicks have proven anything over their last 20 games, it’s that they have reasons to smile, even after losses like Wednesday’s to the defending champs.
Because if this is the defense the Knicks are going to play the rest of the way, they’re beginning to look the part of a team capable of running the table for five straight wins over their five-game road trip.
They’re beginning to look the part of a team capable of running the table in the East.
“New coach. New systems, and just trying to continue to learn how we can maximize our talents in that system. I think these last 20 games has been us really having a good feel and making good calls out there as teammates. Sometimes, we see something out there and we call it out and make the adjustments needed. It’s been great to see our team on the court making adjustments on the fly ourselves, and it’s been working out really well for us on the defensive end,” said Karl-Anthony Towns.
“And we’ve been challenging ourselves to be a better defensive team because we know that’s what it’s gonna take to win a playoff series which it did last year. It wasn’t the offense that won us the game. It was the Mikal Bridges steal in Boston Game 1 and 2. It was big rebounds in Detroit. Those kinds of things won us the game.
“The offense gave us a chance to win. The defense won us the game, so we understand the importance, and we’ll continue to be better every day and continue to be more consistent.”
