The Knicks' star duo of Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns has undeniable talent. In their first season sharing the court together, both of them were named All-Stars and landed on an All-NBA team at the end of the season. Still, the glaring weakness in both of their games is their play on the defensive end, something that The Ringer's Howard Beck thinks could potentially put a ceiling on how far this Knicks team can go.
Speaking on The Ringer NBA Show with Michael Pina, Beck drew similarities between the Brunson and Towns tandem and the dynamic duo of Steve Nash and Amar'e Stoudemire with the "7 Seconds or Less" Phoenix Suns, saying, "It felt like there was always a ceiling on how far the Suns could go because of defense...Your two best players [Nash and Stoudemire] are basically all offense, no D."
Both Brunson and Towns are weak points on defense
While Beck did note that it wasn't a perfect comparison, his point does stand. Both Towns and Brunson are challenged defensively, albeit for different reasons. Brunson is an undersized guard who relies on an elite combination of footwork and shotmaking on offense. On defense, things are more complicated. Even when he does a good job of staying in front of defenders, they can often just rise and shoot over him.
Towns, on the other hand, struggles for a variety of reasons. His defensive lapses are well documented, and he often had difficulty executing the defensive schemes that were drawn up for him under Tom Thibodeau. It is a problem that has plagued him since he entered the league and was a contributing factor in why the Timberwolves went out and acquired Rudy Gobert.
To be fair to Towns, he is an elite defensive rebounder, something that has caused composite metrics to consider him to be an average defender for multiple years of his career.
Insulate them with good defenders
NBA offenses are good (duh). They are especially good at finding pressure points and pressing them until defenses show that they can figure out a way to stop it. It is hard to "hide" a bad defender, and nearly impossible to hide two of them.
The Knicks front office has done a good job of trying to surround Towns and Brunson with elite defenders, who can hopefully shield them and insulate them on that end of the floor as much as possible. OG Anunoby and Mitchell Robinson are both elite defenders. Miles McBride and Mikal Bridges are both good to very good defenders.
Having those players do most of the dirty work will help. However, it remains to be seen if Brunson and Towns can do enough defensively in the playoffs to not cost the Knicks.