Three Knicks takeaways from their first five games of the season
New York Knicks head coach Mike Brown yells from the sideline during the second half of an NBA Cup basketball game against the Chicago Bulls, Friday, Oct. 31, 2025, in Chicago. Credit: AP/Erin Hooley
After starting the season 2-0, the Knicks had lost three in a row entering Sunday night’s game against Chicago. Here are three takeaways from their first five games:
1. The defense is ahead of the offense — and not good
While the focus has been on the Knicks’ new offensive system and the fingers-crossed approach to hoping players will take to it, the defense should be something that the team can bank on. But particularly after the 135-point output by the Bulls on Friday, the defense was in the spotlight.
The return of Mitchell Robinson was expected to help, but that might have been the Knicks’ worst performance.
“It’s real simple,” Mike Brown said. “We lacked physicality that we wanted to have and we’ve been showing on the defensive end of the floor. Our ability to guard the basketball was not good in the first half. We were getting blown by possession after possession.
“And guys were finishing at the rim with no defense there. If we did bring help, they sprayed the ball like they play and we didn’t get to shooters, we didn’t close with a purpose and get to their air space and make them uncomfortable shooting the basketball.
“Our defense tonight in the first half, especially — in the second half it was a little better — was nonexistent, and it starts with guarding the basketball. We have to guard better, guard the basketball, and it has to be with a sense of physicality.
“Because if we don’t, teams are going to do exactly what Chicago did on the offensive end of the floor. We lost three in a row, we’ve hit some adversity early in the season. I’m interested to see how we respond.”
2. Shooting woes
One of the Knicks’ goals this season — as they have said in most seasons — is to shoot more three-point field goals, taking the analytical path forward. And they have succeeded in one sense, jumping from 34.1 attempts per game last season, which ranked 27th in the NBA, all the way up to 44.8 attempts per game this season, good for third place in the NBA.
The issue has been that they aren’t making them at the same rate as they did last season. The Knicks were eighth in percentage at 36.9% converted last season. Through the first five games this season, the Knicks are 34.3%, 18th in the NBA. Add in all shots and they were fifth in field-goal percentage last season and 28th this season.
“It’s the process to get the shot,” Brown said. “We haven’t had a ton of contested threes, which is a tough shot, I don’t care who is taking it. Certain guys are still going to take it.
“We want what we practice. You’re open, your feet are set, catch and shoot. We’re pushing guys to play at a pace that they’re probably a little bit unfamiliar with, so the shot is a little different. Because your conditioning, not just mentally, but physically, has to be there . . . There’s a level of comfortableness that they have to get to before the shots start going in. You could see they’re starting to go in a little bit. And we have the right guys taking the shots. And we want guys — if you’re that wide open, you got to let it fly. Because we’ll get a worse shot later in the shot clock.”
“As a team, we’re just not shooting well,” said Karl-Anthony Towns, who shot 8-for-26 from beyond the arc in the first five games. “We’ve got to shoot better. Obviously, it’s a work in progress, as everyone here has said. We’re all trying to figure out where this team can be as impactful as possible, and that’s going to take time.”
3. The Robinson situation
Maybe Tom Thibodeau would have started Robinson all season long if he had been healthy last season, but instead, he waited until the final four games of the postseason to insert him in the starting lineup. Brown has opted to move Josh Hart to the bench and rework the starting five with Robinson in the middle, shifting Towns over to power forward.
The biggest issue isn’t just that Towns seems out of sorts in the new role and system, but that Robinson is not someone the team can count on to be on the floor every night or even most nights.
Robinson sat out the first four games of the season with what the team called workload management for his left ankle, and that has raised lots of questions. Why did he play in the first three preseason games if rest is a requirement? Why did he not play in the second half of that third game when every other starter did?
Will he play in back-to-back games? Will he need load management shutdowns throughout the season? And how much of an issue is that, trying to adapt to a new system when the lineup is changing all the time?
“I mean, it’s harder,” Brown said. “But it’s part of the process. Can it be done? Yes. Will we get it done? Yes. It’s something that we embrace because we want the best possible version of Mitch we can get.
“Casey [Smith, the Knicks’ vice president of sports medicine] and those guys will handle the technicalities of load management and we’ll just try to get the group as much as we can as often as we can whenever we can and go from there.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
