Karl-Anthony Towns #32 of the New York Knicks speaks with head coach Mike Brown
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Karl-Anthony Towns #32 of the New York Knicks speaks with head coach Mike Brown
The New York Knicks have won five straight games and now, having recovered from the 2-9 stretch that had folks in and around MSG in panic mode, they’ve also got just five days to go before the NBA’s trade deadline hits, which means a lot of big decisions must be made in a short amount of time.
The Knicks could go in a number of different directions at the deadline, though they are just $150,000 under the NBA’s luxury-tax apron and have limited resources to offer. Still, they are expected to at least make one move, perhaps for a reserve big man or a veteran point guard. And there are fair questions about whether the fact that they’ve won five straight should affect how they approach the coming days.
Knicks president Leon Rose does not want to make changes, because he assembled this team and sacrificed most of the club’s future assets to put it together. Making a major change would be an admission, in a way, that he got it wrong and that sort of thing never flies well with owner James Dolan.
Knicks in the Thick of NBA Trade Talk
Still, the Knicks are in the thick of the trade-rumor mill, as is always the case in Gotham. But it’s a bigger deal this time around because the Knicks are a potential landing spot for the big NBA trade deadline price–Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The Knicks would have to uproot a key piece of their team–Karl-Anthony Towns–to make that deal work. All of the chatter has been impossible to ignore, but coach Mike Brown said the team is doing it best to drown it out.
Said Brown: “We understand that we have no control over the noise out there, so we have to have a bunker mentality. Not just at the trade deadline but all the time because there is a lot of noise out there. We’re all human and you try not to listen to it. You just try to stay together. You keep moving forward, trying to get better as the days go along and I think that’s what this group is trying to do.”
Defense Fuels Winning Streak
On the floor, the Knicks deserve credit for vastly improving their game on the defensive end. In beating Portland, 127-97, the Knicks held an opponent to under 100 points for the fourth time in five games, and now have a defensive rating of 92.8 in the last five games, by far the best in the NBA.
During their 2-9 stretch, the Knicks had a defensive rating of 119.8, which was 28th in the league during that span.
“It starts defensively,” Brown said. “The way the guys are on a string, that is at a pretty high level. You’ve got to be connected on that end of the floor. Obviously, you’ve got to be connected all the time, but especially defensively. Shots aren’t going to go in all the time.
“It’s just a work in progress. We’re continuing to try to work at it, try to help them. The guys are a little bit more comfortable with what we’re trying to do, and it’s shown.”