INDIANAPOLIS — The Knicks outscored opponents at a staggering rate of 54.5 points per 100 possessions in the 13 minutes Delon Wright and Miles McBride shared the floor together across five regular-season games — a small sample size, yes, but a telling one.
When Wright shared the court with Mitchell Robinson, the Knicks posted a plus-13.9 net rating. With Mikal Bridges, plus-7.1. With OG Anunoby, plus-4.1.
And when injuries forced Wright into the starting lineup at point guard, New York went 4-1 — despite being without Jalen Brunson, Cameron Payne, and McBride, all sidelined due to injury.
Which is what makes his absence from the Eastern Conference Finals rotation all the more glaring — especially for a team that has collapsed defensively, unraveled on the perimeter, and suddenly finds its championship push hanging by a thread.
If head coach Tom Thibodeau trusted Wright to come in cold and get a critical stop with 26 seconds left in overtime of Game 1, then he can surely trust him now — with the season on the line and the team in desperate need of what Wright provides best: agenda-less, disruption-heavy, high-IQ defense.
Wright isn’t here to hijack possessions. He’s not freelancing, not jacking heat-check threes, not looking to rewrite the offense. He’s here to defend, to connect, to disappear when the job calls for it. That’s the job. And when he arrived in New York at the deadline in the Jericho Sims deal, Wright made that job description clear.
He doesn’t need the ball. Doesn’t ask for shots. Doesn’t break the play. He finds the stars — Brunson, Hart, Towns, Anunoby, Bridges — gets them the ball, then clears space and sets tone on the other end. No agenda. No ego. Just doing whatever it takes to help the team win.
“I sacrifice myself on the offensive end so I can play on the defensive end to a high level,” Wright told the Daily News on April 5. “Sometimes I do wanna score more, but I’ve gotta put my energy on the defensive end. That’s what I want to bring: defense to this team. Other guys’ roles are to score.”
That’s what the Knicks need now — not flash, not flair. They need function. They need a guard who doesn’t need touches, doesn’t need rhythm, and doesn’t need to prove he belongs. Just someone who understands the assignment. And right now, Wright’s could be simple: stabilize a second unit that’s unraveling.
Because this isn’t just about Robinson’s impact. It’s about a backup point guard battle the Knicks are getting thoroughly outclassed in.
T.J. McConnell is playing chess. Cameron Payne is hit or miss. It’s the cold, hard reality, one of the glaring deciding factors to start this series.
Through two games, McConnell has sliced up the Knicks with pace and patience — 20 points, 6 assists, zero panic. In Game 2, he broke them open in a three-minute span that flipped an 81-81 tie into a 94-85 lead. It wasn’t one blow. It was precision — pick-and-rolls that punished poor rotations and miscommunication.
Payne was often the odd man out of position in those rotations. He was minus-9 in Game 2, scoreless, and out of place — capped by a turnover under his own basket that gift-wrapped Indiana another possession. His shot selection is the kind that hits big if it drops and kills flow when it doesn’t. Lately, it hasn’t, and the cold spell couldn’t have come at a worse time.
“Especially against a team like this where they force you into the position to make mistakes. And, if you have one guy that messes up the coverage and one guy who isn’t communicating, one guy that doesn’t step up, it breaks the whole defense down,” Josh Hart said at morning shootaround ahead of Game 3 on Sunday. “Now, you have to try to combat that and cover for that. A team like this that’s incredibly talented offensively, you can’t have any lapses. It just takes one domino to fall to just, you know. We all have to make sure we take pride in guarding our yard but being focused and locked in.”
Enter Wright, who doesn’t need to run the offense. He just needs to stop Indiana’s in its tracks. He’s perennially among the league’s leaders in generating deflections. He can chase Haliburton full-court, stick with McConnell step-for-step, guard across positions without overplaying the moment. He doesn’t gamble. He reads. He reacts.
Robinson might still be the swing piece in this series. The Pacers have little answer — save for journeyman big man Tony Bradley — for New York’s defensive anchor.
But a ship doesn’t sink because of the water around it. It sinks because of the hole left unchecked — and right now, the backup point guard spot is leaking. Wright could be the plug that stops the flood. The Pacers, after all, are pouring it on.
And if the Knicks don’t adjust, don’t pull the lever now — they won’t just lose ground. They’ll watch the series sink below the waterline before the ship ever leaves the dock.
“I think obviously the biggest thing is our [defensive] rotations and our communication and our physicality,” Brunson said at shootaround Sunday morning. “And those things, they go a long way.”
