Lowe:
"The Knicks' defense ranks just below the league's average in points allowed per possession, and even sniffing average is an achievement for the post-2000 Knicks. More than that, they look like a competent, engaged defense when they aren't fouling everyone in sight.
Derek Fisher, easing into the coaching job now, has installed an ultra-conservative shell that mimics how Terry Stotts used Lopez in Portland. The Knicks hang back against the pick-and-roll, funneling defenders toward Lopez in the floater zone. They want to turn every pick-and-roll into a 2-on-2 play so that the other three defenders can stick close to enemy shooters instead of darting into the paint to help.
[The defense's] one big trade-off: The Knicks will concede midrange shots in order to wall off the rim and swarm 3-point shooters. And it's kind of working! Only nine teams allow a lower percentage of shots from beyond the arc and the restricted area combined, per Nylon Calculus, and New York is defending at a borderline top-five level -- and holding its own on the glass -- when Porzingis and Lopez share the floor.
Porzingis is a talker, and he's proven rather spectacularly that he can hang with smaller players on switches. And when the Knicks do help, they're leaving the right players -- and staying close to everyone else. The Knicks rotation on defense is a careful and calculated plan to make sure the right guys are open and the wrong guys are not.
Unfortunately, they are also running up against the limits of their personnel. Calderon and the mercifully benched Sasha Vujacic can't stay in front of anyone; a bundle of New York fouls are emergency responses to drivers smashing through gaping holes at the top of the defense. Anthony has never really been up for chasing wing players, and he loves to swipe. The bigs are lurchy behemoths who hit people almost by accident.
Lopez drops so far back that teams can knife deep into the paint before meeting him. Give speedy guards a runway that long, and they'll create something good. New York has allowed the eighth-most attempts from the restricted area, more than a team playing this style should give up. Teams have only hit 31 percent of wide-open 3s against New York, and that number is already trending up.
Still, the Knicks seem to know which shots they should discourage on defense."
I find that Lowe's article educated me about the Knicks defense. But it had nothing much useful to say about the offense except that the players are not hitting shots . . .
