The Borough is Burning: An Investigation into the New York Knicks Epic Slide

The Knicks have been burning to the ground, but where did the fire start?

Usually, I don’t wade into New York Knicks discourse. The topics are done to death, and most of the time, it’s just an overreaction to the ebbs and flows of an NBA season, but this is different. Since winning the NBA Cup on December 16th, the Knicks are 8-11, and, if we remove their 54-point drubbing of the Nets last night, sport a net rating of -5.1, which stands in stark contrast to their 18-7 start with a +8.9 net rating. As much as shooting variance and performance in close games will explain most slumps, this one is different.

The easiest way to describe the Knicks’ recent slump is that there is no smoking gun, simply a burning building. Literally, everything has gotten worse, I mean, everything. Just look at these charts, which omit the Nets game.

The Knicks are shooting worse, turning it over more, collecting fewer offensive rebounds, and getting to the line less frequently. On defense, they’re allowing buckets with ease, forcing fewer turnovers, rebounding worse, and sending opponents to the line with concerning frequency. That’s a convoluted way of saying they’ve fallen and can’t get up. Barring a cataclysmic injury crisis, teams just don’t experience a -14 net rating swing over such a large sample. With something this widespread, no one is blameless, but every fire has a spark.

The Knicks’ Offensive Offense

Somewhat surprisingly, the Knicks’ offensive collapse is not a product of porous 3-point shooting. Prior to the NBA Cup Final, the Knicks had shot 37.8% from three on 39.9 attempts per game, and since, minus the Nets game, they’ve shot 37.1% on 39.6 attempts per game. That nets out to -1.2 points per game due to a slight decrease in 3-point volume and efficiency. Since the Knicks have seen their offensive rating decline by -7.2 points, 3-point variance accounts for roughly one-sixth of their offensive decline. That’s something, but it’s hardly the culprit.

The Knicks’ most startling decline has come within the arc. They’ve gone from shooting 56.4% on twos to 50.9%. Throw in the fact that they’ve seen their free-throw attempts cut from 23.8 per game to 20.7, and the Knicks went from scoring 75.7 points per game within the arc to 69.6, a decline of 6.1 points per game. The billion-dollar question is why? And the best place to start is with a shot chart.

If there is a smoking gun on offense, it’s the Knicks’ free fall around the rim. They’re getting there less frequently, finishing far worse, and that’s the best place to get to the free-throw line. Unsurprisingly, two of the players who have experienced the largest decline are the Knicks’ two most important offensive players, Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson, but they’re far from the only offenders.

This chart is not meant to be a blame pie, but rather to act as evidence that the Knicks have a systemic issue that’s at the root of their offensive decline. Every single player who averaged two or more field goal attempts per game at the rim prior to the NBA Cup Final has seen their field goal percentage decline, and most have seen a decrease in volume, as well. That’s not the type of trend you want to see from the vast majority of your roster, but why is it happening?

One clear change is that the Knicks have started to drive the ball less. In the pre-NBA Cup Final world, the Knicks averaged 52.5 drives per game, but have seen that fall to 47.8 per game since. They’re also passing out of those possessions less frequently, seeing their pass percentage drop from 36.6% to 33.2%. In simple terms, the Knicks are driving and kicking less than they used to, and they’re getting worse results on drives as a result.

A downstream effect of this has been a decline in total passes per game. They went from averaging 295.1 passes per game to 282.5, and their assist points per game have dropped from 72.2 to 69.3. Once again, both Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns have seen their drives per game drop by sizeable margins during this downswing, but there is another interesting dynamic at play.

The Knicks’ offense is more than just Towns and Brunson. OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges average 15.8 and 15.5 points per game, and have relatively similar-sized offensive roles. They’re tertiary pieces, but they’re still integral to the Knicks’ offensive machine. Interestingly, during this downtick, Mikal Bridges has seen his drives per game plummet, while Anunoby’s have surged.

Part of this is likely down to Anunoby’s post-NBA Cup shooting struggles. Before the NBA Cup final, he shot 40.8% from three on 6.1 attempts per game, but has seen his outside shooting plummet to 26.1% and 4.9 attempts per game. Meanwhile, Bridges has held relatively steady from distance, going from shooting 40.7% on 5.4 attempts per game to 38.9% on 5.9 attempts per game.

The Knicks’ offense, in some respects, appears to have lost some of its balance. With Anunoby’s shooting struggles leading to more drives, he’s taking opportunities away from Brunson, Bridges, and Towns, while leaving them with less space to operate. Now, this doesn’t all fall on Anunoby, but I’d imagine that as soon as he puts his shooting struggles behind him, their offense will improve markedly. They are 13-5 in games where he hits two or more threes, after all.

However, there’s a final offensive trend that I want to footnote. It may be something, it may be nothing, but during this month-long spiral, the Knicks have started to regress to their pre-Mike Brown selves.

Remember how I said the Knicks started passing the ball and driving less? Well, their post-NBA Cup Finals figures look awfully similar to their 2024-25 figures, and their speed and distance data have started to trend towards the Thibs-era.

The Knicks’ Defensive Divebomb

While the Knicks’ complete and utter collapse on offense was a proper whodunit, their decline on defense is not nearly as hard to figure out, but that doesn’t mean there is an easy solution. Removing the Nets game, the Knicks have allowed opponents to shoot 39.5% from 3-point range over their calamitous post-NBA Cup run. And before that, they had held opponents to 36.2% 3-point shooting. That’s not a good 3-point defense, but it’s certainly manageable, so long as their offense is clicking.

Unfortunately, this isn’t just the case of the Knicks getting buried by poor 3-point variance. While teams are shooting lights out against them, they’re actually taking far fewer threes than before. Opponent 3-point shooting is certainly a significant factor, but the Knicks’ struggles at defending shots should begin to normalize. They aren’t suddenly giving up more shots at the rim or are worse at defending them. And most of their defensive pain within the arc is the result of teams shooting well above league average in the five-foot to nine-foot range. They’re never going to be elite shot stoppers, but they also aren’t this bad.

Now, their decline on the defensive glass, increase in fouling, and decline in turnovers are reasons for concern. For the season, the Knicks rank second in defensive rebound rate at 76.2%, but due to their deficiencies elsewhere, they absolutely need to remain elite on that end. The 1.5% decline they’ve experienced post-NBA Cup might not sound like much, but the league-wide standard deviation in defensive rebound percentage is 1.44. While no individual causes their rebounding to fall into the bottom tier of the league, Jalen Brunson’s presence sees them experience a drop of -4.4% from 79% to 74.6%. And that might undersell his individual rebounding blight, considering he has played 757 minutes with Karl-Anthony Towns, who helps improve the Knicks defensive rebounding by 4% from 73.8% to 77.8%

Knicks fans might not want to hear this, but Brunson’s inability to chip in on the boards is a huge concern. It’s hard to say what his true net impact is on the defensive glass, but it is overwhelmingly negative. The Knicks’ best avenue for defensive success is to be elite on the glass and good enough everywhere else.

The Knicks’ combination platter of increased opponent free throws and decreased turnovers sounds straight out of a cafeteria from hell. Generally speaking, there is a slight inverse correlation between fouls and turnovers. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but many of the best teams at generating turnovers pay the price with fouls. In the end, it’s a tradeoff worth making, which is why the Knicks recent trend is troubling.

Their decline in turnover percentage from 13.2% to 11.6% mirrors their decline in deflections per game from 17.1 to 15.9, which aligns, narratively, with the decline in defensive speed. It could be that the Knicks have tired from the high-effort defensive style they employed to start the season, or they may be reverting to old habits Thibodeau drilled into them. Regardless, the turnovers need to pick up, or the fouls need to stop. With their current roster construction, I’d aim for fouling less, as that seems a more sustainable approach for such a veteran team.

Who Started the Fire?

So, what the hell happened to the Knicks? They went from the best team in the East, according to underlying metrics, to performing like a team as obsessed with ping pong balls as Marty Supreme. As laid out, there are a multitude of factors at play, but I think three things stand out.

First, as things started to go sideways, they began to revert to what they knew best. Playing high-level basketball is hard enough, but playing two different styles simultaneously is a recipe for disaster.

Second, the Knicks might have hit a mid-season wall in terms of energy. The NBA Cup isn’t the playoffs, but that means they played one more game and three more high-energy games than the rest of the league.

Third, and this is always the least satisfying explanation, the Knicks, like every team, just hit a lull. The Thunder were 24-1 with a net rating of +17.2; they’ve gone 13-7 with a net rating of +8.7 since. The Knicks’ decline may be more extreme, but it’s not like great teams don’t experience serious dips in play.

And as a bonus, non-data, reason, perhaps, James Dolan’s insistence on not hanging a banner for their NBA Cup triumph caused the entire team to be just a bit less thrilled with suiting up every night? Just a thought, James.

The Knicks were never the team that posted a net rating of +8.9 over the season’s first 25 games, just as they’re not the team that has slumped over the past month. There’s still a high-level side in here; they just need to get back to Mike Brown’s offense, rebound like gangbusters, and remain disciplined on defense. If they do that, they’ll have no problem pairing an elite offense with an average defense, which was always their road map to the Finals. Everything is burning in Madison Square Garden, but this is still fine.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.