The Knicks are on the precipice of their first playoff series win in 10 years thanks to adjustments and clutch play from Jalen Brunson and RJ Barrett. How can they take Game 5?

A little under thirty years ago, one of the two greatest basketball players the world has ever seen played one of his worst games, followed by one of his best. Michael Jordan and his Chicago Bulls, fresh off back-to-back championships, were down 2-0 to the hard-nosed New York Knicks. In Game 3, Jordan went 3-18 from the field in a game the Bulls managed to still win by 20. In typical Jordan fashion, he followed that up by scoring 54 points to tie the series up in Game 4. All of this was just a prelude to what would become one of the most famous Game 5s in NBA history, with one team looking to cement itself as a dynasty, and the other, perhaps the most famous basketball team in the world, trying to reach its first NBA Finals in over 20 years. 

If you’re reading this, you probably know what happened. Patrick Ewing played one of the finest games of his career. This should have been his moment. Since the arrival of co-star Scottie Pippen, nobody had ever led a team against a Michael Jordan-led team and seen the other side — at least not without serious help. The Knicks had put a scrappy group around Ewing, but make no mistake, he was the lone star. And on this night, he held up his end of the bargain: 33 points, nine rebounds, three assists, two blocks. Ewing’s Knicks were in it until the end, when the ball found role player Charles Smith under the basket with less than 10 seconds left in the game. The scoreboard read: Bulls 95, Knicks 94. Smith had four different looks at the basket. Four. Each one was blocked. The Bulls escaped with a victory and would win the series in six, before ultimately winning their third consecutive championship.

So, yeah, Game 5s can be special. Or devastating. Perspective matters. Will the Knicks clinch just their second playoff series victory of the millennium? Will the Cavs force the Knicks to close it out on their home court Friday night? Or could this be the start of an epic comeback, one only 13 out of 273 (4.8%) teams trailing 3-1 in a playoff series have been able to pull off?

The story so far

It would be reasonable to say this series has pretty much gone as expected. Everyone had RJ Barrett playing some of the best basketball of his life, Donovan Mitchell averaging 16 points on 38% shooting at the Garden, and Julius Randle getting benched in favor of Obi Toppin to close a decisive victory, right? Amidst the surprises, there has been one that has stood out like a sore thumb: the Knicks are defending like a true Tom Thibodeau-coached team. 

In the regular season, the Knicks had the seventh-best net rating (+2.8) in the entire league. This was built upon an elite offense, which ended the season third in the league. The defense, however, lagged well behind. In fact, the 114.2 DRTG (defensive rating, the number of points allowed per 100 possessions) they ended the season with would go down as the worst defense Tom Thibodeau has ever coached. These four games have been a different story. Their 101.3 DRTG leads all playoff teams, and plants the Knicks as the most stout defense of the playoffs. And the Knicks have needed it. Going up against the Cleveland Cavaliers, who had the league’s best defense this season, the offense has wilted. They are scoring almost 10 fewer points per 100 possessions.

This all starts with Mitchell Robinson. Robinson has been a menace in the paint. During the regular season, the Knicks typically default to having Robinson play drop coverage, a coverage that puts a lot of pressure on the perimeter defender to disallow the ball handler from walking into a pull-up 3-pointer. Because the Knicks have so much respect for Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland, they’ve tinkered with their coverage and had him start higher up, sometimes at the level of the screen to dissuade those pull-ups. The Cavs have responded by using other players as screeners. Thibodeau has shown different coverages in these scenarios, but with Robinson on the court, the Knicks are often blitzing hard. Why? Because Thibodeau trusts Robinson to handle the ensuing 3v4 situations with the grace and expertise he has in these four games. Evan Mobley operating as the roll man has been the least efficient player in these entire playoffs. A big part of that is Robinson standing between him and the basket.

Not far behind Robinson has been the point-of-attack defense from Josh Hart, Quentin Grimes, Barrett, and Immanuel Quickley. Mitchell and Garland are so good that sometimes the only thing you can do is make sure they work. Through four games, the collective efficiency of those two and Caris LeVert has dropped immensely. Mitchell especially has struggled, his TS% (true shooting percentage) has dropped from 61.4% in the regular season to just 52% in the playoffs. Depth is typically seen as less vital than star power in the playoffs, but the Knicks’ depth is making a strong pushback. With four guys defending at this level, the Knicks have ensured they have at least two guys on the court who can, at the least, make the Cavs stars’ lives difficult. 

Quickley has been in a world of his own defensively. Not just relative to his teammates, but to the entire league. When Quickley is on the court, the Knicks’ DRTG is 80.8. This would be the lowest DRTG in NBA history. But even in the playoffs, the world of small sample sizes, where outliers exist, he is lapping the field. The second-lowest individual DRTG belongs to De’Anthony Melton of the Philadelphia 76ers at 92.3. That’s right, that means the Knicks with Quickley on the court are allowing 11.5 points per 100 possessions fewer than any other team is allowing with any other player on the court.

What has made Quickley so special? Simple: he’s added an entire new element to an already extravagant defensive arsenal. In the regular season, Quickley was Thibs’ band-aid. If the Knicks’ defense had a wound, Quickley, more often than not, found a way to sew it up. He is one of the best off-ball defenders in the entire league. He is always talking, moving, and looking for ways to help his team, sometimes to a fault. His defense on the ball was good (particularly navigating screens and top-blocking), but not to the level of Grimes or even Hart. 

The problem with this profile is that in the playoffs — where teams are better and isolation basketball is more prevalent — there are simply fewer mistakes to fix. What you can do at the point of attack trumps playing free safety. After struggling in Game 1, Quickley has, before our eyes, made a gigantic leap as an on-ball defender. In Games 3 and 4 at Madison Square Garden, Quickley absolutely hounded Garland and LeVert. In the third quarter of Game 4, the Knicks came out of the locker room after halftime and watched a 9-point lead dissipate. Garland was getting what he wanted, when he wanted. Their pick-and-roll was humming (largely due to a completely disinterested Randle). Quickley entered and put a stop to that immediately. 

In 19 minutes of play, the Cavs scored just 27 points with Quickley on the court (putting them on pace to score less than 70 points across 48 minutes). Unsurprisingly, he led the game in +/-. He leads the series in +/- as well, almost doubling every other player in the series (Quickley is +41, Hartenstein +23, Brunson +21). Despite leading the series 3-1, the Knicks have lost the non-Quickley minutes decisively. They are -25 when he sits. They are -13 when Quickley sits in just the three games they won! Quickley needs to get his offense going, but if one player has proven he can impact winning without putting the ball in the basket, it’s him. 

Speaking of offense, the Knicks have had a difficult time navigating the sea of limbs that is the Cavaliers’ defense. With twin towers Mobley (third in Defensive Player of the Year voting this season) and Jarrett Allen waiting at the rim, the Knicks have been unable to get to the basket very much. Cleveland is willing to live with certain 3-pointers, and the Knicks have been unable to make them pay. Brunson, Randle, Barrett, Quickley and Grimes have combined to shoot 23-96 from three this series. A ghastly 24% from the team’s five best offensive players. So how have they won? It hasn’t been all defense, you need to score a little bit. And as bad as their offense has been it has been less bad than the Cavaliers’ offense. You have to start with two players: Brunson and Barrett. 

Brunson has been everything Knicks fans had hoped for and more. He is the point guard that was promised. Brunson is the league’s most stabilizing player. The Knicks rarely have scoring droughts when he is on the court because his field goal attempts have such a high floor. With Brunson, overall impact comes down to a balance. How much should he create for himself vs others? In theory, Brunson could create a decent efficiency bucket whenever he wants. But you can’t win a game by yourself. Getting your teammates in rhythm is essential. In Game 2, Brunson struggled mightily with that balance. The first quarter was basically a one-man show. When the Knicks journeyed home to the Garden, Brunson was much better. A big part of that was the emergence of a co-star he could trust: Barrett.

Barrett has put himself on a path to completely recrafting the narrative of this season, and perhaps his Knicks career. Barrett’s regular season was, to be generous, disappointing. He was inefficient, didn’t pass much and played even less defense. He was one of the league’s most detrimental players from an impact standpoint. Had the trends remained the same and the Knicks bowed out in Round 1, many insiders expected the Knicks to look to shop Barrett in the offseason, even with his trade value at its absolute lowest. It seemed close to the end. 

In games 1 & 2, Barrett continued to struggle with his shot, but there were signs of life. He was making better reads and making them earlier. More importantly, his defense was locked into a place it hadn’t been since early in the 2021-2022 season (remember the guy who held Tatum to like 1-17 shooting on opening night last season???). And he hasn’t just been locked in on-ball. Even bad defenders are capable of rising to the occasion in a 1v1 situation. Everybody has an ego. They take these challenges personally. Where bad defenders can get burned is falling asleep off the ball. But Barrett hasn’t. He’s rotating early, tagging rolls and then recovering to the perimeter, and even getting his hands dirty battling Mobley and Allen in the paint for defensive rebounds. Even with poor offensive output, the process was so overwhelmingly positive there was more reason for optimism surrounding Barrett than there had been all season.

And then the Knicks came home.

Games 3 and 4 saw Barrett put it all together. We’ve seen Barrett score 40 before, but we’ve never seen him play this well under these conditions. Barrett followed up 19 points, eight rebounds and three assists on 67% shooting in Game 3 with a mesmerizing 26 points, two rebounds and one assist on 50% shooting in Game 4. And that doesn’t even tell the whole story. Because while the box score says he had only four assists over the two games, his passing was probably the most vital part of his transformation.

During the regular season, Barrett passed on just 28% of his drives to the basket, one of the lowest totals in the league. Barrett being an unwilling passer made him predictable to defenses, which saw him shooting higher difficulty shots, tanking his efficiency. In the playoffs, Barrett is passing on 45% of his drives. The reads are coming earlier, so the potential assists and hockey assists are rising rapidly. And guess what? Despite his increase in passing, he is turning it over at the lowest rate of any player in the league! Barrett has a TOV% (turnover percentage) of just 4.4%. The Knicks’ offense has always been a giant math equation — their bet is that with enough of a possession advantage, they can beat anyone. Barrett creating high-quality shots while valuing each possession has been invaluable to his team. With Randle struggling, Barrett has stepped up and been the second option Brunson so desperately needs. He has firmly been the Knicks’ second-best player.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Hart or Robinson a little more. I talked earlier about Hart’s defense on Mitchell, but his offense has flown a bit under the radar. The playoffs typically see efficiencies regress, that’s the nature of the game when defenses are better and more locked in. Hart is averaging more points (13.5 per game up from 10.2 per game in the regular season) and doing so at a much more efficient clip (69.3% TS% up from 62.2%). He is one of those players that is so obviously built for these moments that, while it’s shocking that these have been his first playoff games, it’s not surprising at all to see him immediately thrive. 

And Robinson is another variable in the Knicks’ math equation. As important as avoiding turnovers is to this team, offensive rebounds may be more vital. In a way, the Knicks’ offense and defense are built around Robinson’s strengths as a player. In this series, Robinson is corralling 19.3% of available offensive rebounds when he is on the court; a truly preposterous number. The Knicks have 58 offensive rebounds and 54 turnovers, while the Cavs have 42 offensive rebounds and 63 turnovers. The playoffs are all about winning at the margins. In four games, the Knicks have outscored the Cavaliers by just 16 points, and those 25 extra possessions may just be the margin putting them over the top.

Game 5

So now that you’re all caught up, let’s discuss tonight’s game. The Cavaliers, despite being down 3-1, head into Game 5 as 5.5 point favorites, according to Draft Kings. Home court advantage is usually worth between three and four points, so the sports books still view the Cavaliers as the better team in a vacuum. 

Fortunately for Knicks fans, a playoff series does not occur in a vacuum. And while the Cavaliers may be the better team (I’m skeptical), the Knicks have put themselves in a position where they merely have to win one of the next three games. I expect Mitchell to come out aggressive. I also expect the Cavs to have a better strategy attacking these advantageous 4v3 situations. It’s a boring solution to say “play better,” but when you have a team built around four players, sometimes that’s all you can ask for. They need better from Mitchell, Garland, Mobley and Allen. It’s reasonable to expect them to play better back home.

On the Knicks’ end, I expect we’ll see more of the same. Barrett has firmly supplanted Randle as the Knicks’ second option. We will continue to see non-Centers screen for Brunson. One of the biggest victories of Game 4 was watching Thibodeau adjust to the Cavaliers’ pick-and-roll coverage change in real time. The Cavs wanted the ball out of Brunson’s hands, so they blitzed while also pre-rotating to the outlet man. Thibodeau responded by screening for the screener and then moving the primary ball screen to the side of the court and then having the outlet man (Barrett) roll to the corner. This made it much more difficult for the Cavs to pre-rotate. The result was an abundance of great Knicks possessions to close the game. Will the Cavs be more prepared for that in Game 5? Does Thibodeau have another counter up his sleeve? I wouldn’t put it past him.

Win or lose, it’s important to zoom out for a moment and appreciate where the Knicks are. Three years ago the Knicks had a team of bad contracts, little draft capital and were generally directionless. Owner James Dolan brought Leon Rose to give them direction, and Rose hired Thibodeau to provide structure. The fates of Rose and Thibodeau are among the things that tie them together, so it feels fitting that both have ultimately exceeded expectations. Rose hasn’t just given the Knicks direction, he has them in the best spot they’ve been in the 21st century. The Knicks are up 3-1 in a series against a team that finished the regular season with the second-best net rating in the league. They are doing so with a nine-man rotation in which their oldest player is 28 years old. Seven Knicks who have contributed are 24 or younger. In their back pocket lies a war chest of draft picks deeper than almost any team in the league outside of Oklahoma City.

The face of this upstart team? Tom Thibodeau. The man who once started Elfrid Payton 63 games, who was prioritizing the development of Alec Burks just a season ago, has evolved into a flexible, adjusting aficionado. After a 10-13 start, Thibodeau benched his veterans and turned to 23-year-old Immanuel Quickley and 22-year-old Quentin Grimes. Once a man who refused to switch on screens out of fear of exposing the paint, Thibodeau has deployed more screen coverages in a four game playoff series than he did his first two seasons as the Knicks’ head coach. Once known as a defensive-first coach, he crafted an offense around the strengths of his best players that became the third-best offense in basketball. And when it came time to build a defense tailored to a specific opponent, he has done that too. There are still at least three games left to go in this series and these playoffs, but it feels unlikely that the transformations of Thibodeau and Barrett won’t play a huge role in how this Knicks’ franchise moves forward. I couldn’t be more excited for that future.

Let’s just hope the Knicks’ future starts in a month or two.