The New York Knicks have lost five of their last seven games, most recently a 124-119 defeat against the Detroit Pistons on Monday night. Some of that loss can be explained away by it being the second night of a back-to-back, but Knicks guard Josh Hart isn't interested in excuses.
"We gotta find a way to bring energy, to execute," Hart said after the loss. "We can have all the excuses in the world, we gotta go out there and play."
The loss brought the Knicks to the midway point of the season. While the Knicks' 26-15 record is good for third place in the East, they haven't been able to keep pace with the Boston Celtics or Cleveland Cavaliers this season. That doesn't appear good enough for Hart and the Knicks.
"We're losing games I feel like we shouldn't be losing," Hart said. "We gotta figure it out. We're halfway into the season now at this point. Nothing we can do about the first half now. Now all we got to do is focus on the second. But, if we want to be the team that we want to be at the end of the year, we gotta start correcting these [mistakes]."
Prior to the loss against the Pistons, the Knicks also lost at home to an Orlando Magic team that was without both Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, as well as a road game to a rebuilding Chicago Bulls team, where they fell behind by as many as 19 points. Including the loss to the Pistons, all three of those were winnable games for the Knicks, so what's to blame? "We gotta have a sense of urgency, attention to detail, have to communicate better, we got things that we gotta start figuring out," Hart said.
All of those things Hart mentioned can be attributed to some defensive breakdowns the Knicks have been showing through the first half of the season. Specifically, they're having trouble defending the 3-point line. The Knicks allow the fifth-highest 3-point percentage, and against the Pistons, who shot 44% from deep in that game, the breakdown was on full display.
The Knicks primarily struggled guarding the 3-point line in transition, as there looked to be breakdowns in communication getting back on defense and as Hart said a "lack of urgency."
In this first clip, the Knicks just look unorganized. They even had a 4-on-3 advantage against the Pistons and still allowed a deep above-the-break 3-pointer to Malik Beasley.
On another possession, Tobias Harris is running the break and collapses the defense with Mikal Bridges dictating things and Miles McBride prepared to take a charge. But OG Anunoby doesn't slide out to the corner on a wide open Beasley who then kicks it to Tim Hardaway Jr (also wide open) for a triple.
There's also times where attention to detail is lacking, like this play where no one picked up the trailing Cade Cunningham. He missed the 3-pointer, but it was still a defensive breakdown by the Knicks.
The breakdown in communication is to be expected as the Knicks integrated two new pieces (Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns) into the starting lineup, and while half a season should seem like plenty of time to get acclimated with one another, it's not always going to be a smooth journey. It's also not as if the Knicks are completely floundering right now, prior to the loss against the Pistons they beat the brakes off the Milwaukee Bucks to the tune of a 140-106 win.
But tightening up these things is what separates the good from the great teams, and the Knicks aren't looking to just be "good." The aggressive moves they made in the offseason suggested as much, and they'll need to tighten things up in the second half of the regular season.
