The Knicks’ defense this year has been bad. But just below the surface, they’ve actually been very similar to last year’s top-three defense over the same span. Could the Knicks be on an eventual path to defensive competency again this season?

We’ve already heard countless variations of this all-too-predictable early-season sentence: “the Knicks are 25th in defense, they were fourth last season; this is what regression looks like!” Sigh. Actually, no, it’s not. In reality, the Knicks’ defensive fingerprint this season is far more similar than different to last season’s.

Here are three reminders on how to frame the discussion about the Knicks’ ailing defense, using last year as a blueprint, and what to look for as a sign for genuine improvement going forward.

1. The regression already happened

Over the first 28 games of last season, Knicks opponents shot 31.7% from 3-point range, by far the best mark in the league. From game 29 through game 72, Knick opponents shot 35.3% from three, just 0.7 of a percentage point off league average. Essentially: the regression happened last season. Interestingly, though, this regression did not impact the Knicks’ defensive efficiency, which was third in the league through the first 28 games, and third in the league in the subsequent 44 games.

This is largely because the slippage in opponents’ 3-point percentage was offset by limiting opponents’ 3-point attempts: from 37.1 in the first 28 games of the season to 34.3 in the remaining 44. Meaning the Knicks’ somewhat counterintuitively improved defensively over the same segment of the season that opponents started hitting shots, two changes happening simultaneously that created the illusion that nothing had changed.

2. The regression in percentage is distinct from early season struggles executing a demanding scheme

This season, Knick opponents are shooting 36.9% from three, the sixth-highest percentage in the league (would have been 12th last season). While the percentage is vastly different, the variable that is similar to last season’s defensive start is the attempts: the Knicks are allowing 41.2 3PAs per game this season, the second-most in the league. This raw number sounds like a bigger difference to last season’s than it is. As a proportion of shot attempts, it’s 43.9% over the first 28 games last season versus 45.5% through 13 games this season.

For the vast majority of last season, when the Knicks’ defense was at its best, from game 29 to game 72, the Knicks opponents 3-point percentage had already regressed. Crucially, though, they allowed only 39.7% of opponents shots from three, slap bang in the middle of the NBA pack as the 14th-highest share of triples allowed in the league. 

The headline: the 3-point statistic that has always mattered most to the Knicks’ defense is attempts allowed, not percentage allowed. 

The subheader: the Knicks’ defense at the start of this season is suffering from exactly the same root-problem of allowing too many attempts as last season.

3. Fewer attempts, and consistent contests, are the bellwethers of improvement

As further evidence for the ingredients of last season’s second half defensive surge, let’s use the NBA’s imperfect shot contest metrics — sorry, Prez. But in this instance it’s sufficient to make a specific point — tracking data for wide open (6-plus feet) threes, we can see the improved defensive execution from game 28 of last season onwards, and how those first 28 are mirroring the start of this season. 

In the first 28 games of last season, 24% of the threes the Knicks gave up were “wide open.” From game 28 onwards, 18.2% were “wide open.” It’s reasonable to draw a line from fewer threes, to fewer “wide open” threes, to better defense. This season, 24.9% of the threes the Knicks are giving up are “wide open.”

Whatever the geographical flaws of this type of data, the flaws are consistent across seasons, and they help paint a picture of previous defensive improvement.

Conclusion: a tentative reason for hope?

It’s interesting that the process, if not the results, of this season are mirroring that of last year’s team. It lends itself to optimism about this year’s roster improving with time, just like last year’s roster did, and it pours some very cold water on the notion that personnel changes are to blame for this season’s struggles. Elfrid Payton and Reggie Bullock were there for the first 28 games of last season, and struggled to execute a new and taxing scheme just as this year’s backcourt is, before improving as the season went on.

The Knicks giving up the same shots this season as they were at this stage last year, although bad in a vacuum, is in a way actually good news, as long as Tom Thibadeau can coax the same buy-in from this group as he could from last year’s group. This is not necessarily a given, because despite the process being the same, the psychology this season is different in a number of ways. 

Firstly, the fact that opponents’ missed shots to start last year acted as proof of concept for what Thibs was preaching, which serendipitously helped the roster’s collective investment in the scheme, an investment that insulated an elite defensive rating built on rickety foundations and kept it elite when the shots started falling. This year, with opponents hitting those exact same shots, that proof of concept is harder to identify and rally behind.

Secondly, the offense, on paper at least, is better this year — although, quick aside, it’s ranked 20th in the league over the last seven games, at 105.9 points per 100 possessions, a mark that would have ranked 28th last season — and so the call for a hard-nosed defensive identity has less gravity than it did last year on a roster with less talent and less margin for error.

The symmetry in process between the start of this season and the start of last season is being sneakily concealed by an equally asymmetrical pair of early-season results. Opponents missed the shots last season that they are making this season: but they are the same shots. The regression in opponents’ percentage last year masked a parallel progression as the season went on in limiting opponents’ attempts, making putting a label on this early-season sample a tricky business. It’s something like trying to decipher a knotty riddle of statistical stories without getting your beginnings and middles and ends all kinds of mixed up.

All in all, like the previous paragraph, it’s a bit of a headache. But it’s also a reminder to stay woke to slapdash arguments of general defensive regression. Percentages are less important than attempts, and last season should be discussed as two separate defensive stories, the first 28 games and the remaining 44. Through 13 games this season, the defense has been bad in almost exactly the same ways as it was early last year. Thibodeau and last year’s group fixing it once is no guarantee of the current roster fixing it again — but the problem is a familiar one: a new group getting to grips with a new scheme that is very difficult to learn and execute.

If and when the Knicks start to hold teams at or below their season average in 3-point attempts, it will point to the type of improvement in defensive process that happened at around the 28-game mark last season.