How did the Knicks knock off two playoff opponents they couldn’t solve during the regular season? It wasn’t about inserting Mitchell Robinson into the starting lineup to get past the Detroit Pistons or Boston Celtics.
It was a shift at the point of attack — a defensive adjustment that gave the Knicks an edge in Rounds 1 and 2. And if they want any shot at surviving Round 3, now facing a 3-1 hole in the conference finals against the Indiana Pacers with the series returning to Madison Square Garden for Game 5 on Thursday, New York may need to revisit the fix that neutralized one of its longest-standing issues.
The Knicks let Mikal Bridges guard the point of attack during the regular season — an experiment that turned him into the scapegoat for several larger defensive shortcomings and repeatedly exposed his struggles containing opposing lead guards, the NBA’s most talent-rich position. In the first round of the playoffs, head coach Tom Thibodeau made the switch: Cade Cunningham, who torched New York for 30.8 points on 50 percent shooting from both the field and three in the regular season, ran headfirst into a brick wall. With OG Anunoby blanketing him, Cunningham looked nothing like an All-Star: 5.3 turnovers per game, and a hard-earned 25 points per night on just 43 percent shooting from the field and 18 percent from deep.
The second round told a similar story. Jayson Tatum averaged 33.5 points on 53.5 percent shooting from the field and 47.8 percent from deep — with just 1.8 turnovers — in four regular season wins over the Knicks, most of them with Bridges guarding him. Tatum erupted for one signature game in his second-round series against the Knicks: 42 on 16-of-28 shooting in Game 4. But the Celtics’ superstar scorer shot just 20-of-52 from the field across Games 1 through 3 and coughed up the ball 3.8 times per game — more than double his turnover average against the Knicks during the regular season — with Anunoby hounding him in the playoffs.
Which brings us to the Indiana Pacers — and more specifically, to Tyrese Haliburton, the All-Star guard the Knicks have refused to unleash Anunoby against.
Haliburton averaged 17 points per game through three regular-season meetings agains the Knicks, and 17 points again through Indiana’s first- and second-round playoff series against the Milwaukee Bucks and Cleveland Cavaliers.
In this series? He’s up to 24 points and 11 assists per game, shooting 45.5 percent from the field and averaging just 1.5 turnovers. Haliburton is coming off the most efficient turnover-less playoff game in NBA history. He’s picked Bridges apart in isolation, hunted switches to attack Robinson and Towns in pick-and-roll, and operated Indiana’s up-tempo offense with almost no resistance.
Anunoby hasn’t been his primary defender — because the Knicks haven’t made him one. And Pacers headcoach Rick Carlisle isn’t about to give them an opening: Pascal Siakam has almost never screened for Haliburton during these conference finals, because doing so would drag Anunoby into the action.
And when Anunoby is in the action, bad things tend to happen for the opposing offense.
Shifting the Knicks’ chief defensive stopper onto Haliburton would cause a ripple effect with New York’s defensive assignments. It would require new answers for Siakam, who has already posted a pair of 30-point games in these conference finals. But between Towns, Robinson, and Bridges — who has been more reliable on wings and secondary creators — the Knicks can find answers for Indiana’s No. 2 option. What the Knicks haven’t had is anything to slow the engine behind Indiana’s breakneck offense.
Or maybe they have had the answer and just haven’t used it.
And yet this is the moment the Knicks were assembled to handle — the exact scenario that justified a franchise-record deal during the offseason. It’s how defenders get DPOY votes. It’s how you make an All-Defensive Team. You take the other team’s star guard out of the game, cut off the head of the snake. You step up for a team that otherwise will go home in five games, six at most.
Anunoby isn’t on this roster to guard second options. He’s here to play shut-down corner. And with every possession he’s glued to Siakam — or another Pacers wing — the Knicks keep letting Haliburton off the hook.
Which is why it’s no surprise they’re down 3-1 to one of the most disciplined, well-coached offensive teams in the league. Because when the Pacers find a weakness, they pick at it like a scab.
The Knicks have had the same flaw all season — a failure to guard the point of attack. And just as quickly as they found the fix, they inexplicably abandoned it.
It’s time to get back to what worked. Put Anunoby on Haliburton. Defend Siakam by committee. Live with the results — because when Anunoby guards the point of attack, the results have favored the Knicks.
When Bridges is in that role, what you see is what you get — and what the Pacers are getting is everything they want.
