The New York Knicks are on fire right now, but it’s masking the bigger problem that they failed to account for at the NBA trade deadline: The combination of Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns still isn’t good enough to hold up on the defensive end, especially in the playoffs.
Brunson and Towns are awesome on offense. They have an undeniable chemistry that will be tough for teams to guard, no matter how many solid defenders they have. But on the defensive end, if and when Brunson and Towns get put in a pick-and-roll, it’s going to be hard for them to get stops.
Yet New York still decided to keep the two together past the deadline.
Knicks needed to fix Brunson-Towns defensive problem with trade
Obviously, trading Brunson was never on the table for the Knicks. He’s one of the greatest Knicks of all-time, an absolute hero in the city of New York, and a perennial MVP candidate.
Brunson even took a massive paycut to help the Knicks keep their roster together, so trading him would be a very bad look for the Knicks.
However, with all of the rumblings regarding the Knicks potentially looking at Towns trades, that seemed like at least a relatively real possibility. And it’s one the Knicks should have considered more.
Trading Towns for guys that could elevate New York’s defense around Brunson would have been smart, especially considering the Knicks have started keeping Towns off the floor in some closing lineups.
It’s clear that New York wants to play Brunson and high-level defenders. That’s a clear formula for winning in New York, and Towns isn’t a part of it.
Yet, the Knicks didn’t trade him. They kept the guy who makes a ton of money, can’t keep up super well on defense, and isn’t even closing every night.
It’s not an ideal situation to be in.
Perhaps the Knicks want to wait until the summer to consider Towns deals, but that will just waste a potential year of contention. Now is the time for the Knicks to push their chips onto the table.
The East has never been more wide-open. The Detroit Pistons have been great, but their current group hasn’t been past the first round yet (and they lost to the Knicks last year). The Boston Celtics don’t have Jayson Tatum (yet). And nobody else stacks up with New York’s talent.
But the defense of Towns and Brunson could be the team’s downfall, and they didn’t fix that issue at the deadline.
Even if the solution was to add another defensive-minded big who could play more minutes than Mitchell Robinson, it could have helped. But the Knicks didn't do that, and they didn't trade Towns.