The Knicks need to clean up their 3-point defense.
Poor defense behind the arc has been a through line for a team that won nine out of 11 games before dropping two out of their last three following Tuesday’s 137-134 overtime loss to the Indiana Pacers.
The Knicks allowed the Pacers to shoot 16-of-35 from downtown through the first three quarters before stagnating late in regulation and in the extra period.
They allowed the Detroit Pistons to shoot 17-of-40 on threes in their 37-point loss on Feb. 6 and conceded several wide-open looks the Boston Celtics couldn’t cash in on in a miserable three-point shooting performance for New York’s lone win of the three-game stretch.
The Pacers, who ultimately shot 18-of-45 from deep on the night, exacerbated the Knicks’ issues with five players making two or more treys. Eight of the 10 players to touch the floor for Rick Carlisle converted from deep against the Knicks.
“I thought a couple of times we kind of closed to our guy and we stopped short. We want to be physical when we close to the ball. We want them to feel us,” head coach Mike Brown said after the loss. “We call it the hot stove technique. Put your hands on whoever [and then pull them off]. We stopped short and kind of looked at them, and there’s a couple of times guys just raised up and shot the basketball.
“They are all NBA players, and if anyone gets comfortable shooting the ball — especially at the beginning — then it’s going to carry over the course of the game. I felt we could have closed out a little better.
“Then on the backside a couple of times, we didn’t execute our rotations when it came to stopping the dribble penetration and getting out the shooters. We didn’t execute the way we should have.”
The Knicks rank top-10 in opponent three-point makes per game (13.9 — eighth place) as a byproduct of a defensive scheme that prioritizes protecting the paint. They are middle-of-the-pack in 3-point percentage (35.9%), and their recent struggles have come in games Mitchell Robinson (ankle), OG Anunoby (toe) and Miles McBride (pelvic surgery) have missed due to injury.
Their latest struggles, however, came against a Pacers team collecting just its 14th win of the season against a Knicks squad, albeit short handed, expected to compete for a championship. The Pacers were without All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton and newly acquired starting center Ivica Zubac when they defeated the Knicks on Tuesday.
“They hit tough shots, and then they made threes and on the other side, we didn’t make enough 3s to combat the amount they were hitting from three,” said Karl-Anthony Towns. “So we didn’t reach that standard of defense that we’ve shown in recent games and it came back to bite us today.”
“Just be a little bit more physical. They were in their rhythm, just pick up our intensity on the ball with our physicality and stuff like that,” added Jalen Brunson. “Off the ball, I just feel like they were moving really freely tonight. They were in a rhythm all night.”
