It makes for convenient fodder that a few days after Draymond Green pronounced that there aren’t any real championship contenders in the Eastern Conference — in his opinion, of course — the Warriors go on the road and get beat by Bucks.
But that’s neither here nor there. Yes, all regular season games count the same, but nobody in their right mind is looking at a game in October and wondering about the impact that it will have in April. Thursday night was the first night of a 12-game stretch in which the Warriors will be the visitors in 10 of those contests, so a 120-110 loss on Oct. 30 is just not an honest contention barometer.
That said, Green took a direct shot at a particular team in the Eastern Conference, and further, two pretty clear individual players on that team. The team is the New York Knicks, and the two players he’s basically citing as a major reason for what he believes is a ceiling short of contention are Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns.
“The Knicks, I just personally don’t believe that they’re contenders,” Green said. “I don’t think they have what it takes to win at the highest level. I think you can stifle their offense, and make it hard on them. Also on the defensive end, any time you have a couple guys on the floor at the same time, that are really key guys, who don’t really want to defend, it makes it tough to win at the highest level. And so that’s my question with the Knicks.”
First, let’s speak to Green’s assessment that New York has an offense that can be “stifled.” This is a lot of what Mike Brown was brought in to address. The Knicks want to reduce their reliance on Brunson having to create pretty much everything on his own, which makes it not only tough on him but, in some ways, easier for a defense to predict the action.
Brunson is playing more off ball this season. His possession and dribbles-per-touch times are down, even as his total touches are up, a sign that he’s not holding the ball as long on any one touch and is looking to move it and get it back later in the possession. The goal is to keep everyone involved and force defenses into having to make more rotations and decisions, as opposed to being able to key in on one guy.
I wouldn’t say the Knicks have ever been easy to guard during Brunson’s tenure. They were the No. 2 offense in the league last season, though their per-100-possession rating did go down by five points in the playoffs when defenses are totally focused on taking away, to whatever degree possible, your go-to stuff.
But, yes, it’s true that New York, in the past, has been an offense that could be, from time to time, stifled into stagnant possessions, and in the playoffs, possessions decide games, series and championships. I agree with Green on this front if New York reverts to its old ways. But Brown is adamant about this, and I think they’ll be better for it.
As far as the defensive stuff, when Green says it’s tough to win a championship when you have “a couple guys on the floor at the same time, that are really key guys, who don’t really want to defend,” he is clearly talking about Brunson and Towns. For starters, they are the two key Knicks players. And second, they are the only guys who will be on the floor together in crunch time that you could saddle with the non-defender tag with a straight face.
Rest assured, Green is not talking about Jordan Clarkson. And everyone else defends, most of them at a high level. So Green is surely talking about Brunson and Towns, and until proven otherwise, he’s probably got a point. You won’t find many championship teams whose two best players are true defensive liabilities.
Even having one weak defender is a major obstacle. Offenses hunt and single these guys out relentlessly, and the scrambling that has to take place on the back end to cover for said weak link leads to all kinds of breakdowns.
And don’t try to point to Green’s teammate, Stephen Curry, as a counter argument. For starters, neither Brunson nor Towns is Curry. Nobody is. No normal rules apply to him or his outsized offensive impact. And besides that, Curry is indisputably better and more committed than Brunson or Towns — relative to position, of course — on the defensive end.
All of this is to say, we’ll see. Green has a lot of credibility here. He obviously knows what it takes to win a title, and he’s not really saying anything people don’t already know anyway.
The key is if the Knicks can be a different team by the time this postseason arrives. Are they going to be comfortable as a more inclusive and movement-based offense that shoots more 3s with six months of reps under their belt? Will Brunson and Towns defend to the best of their ability, possession after possession, in the playoffs? If they do, then New York can compete with anyone. Green is apparently betting they won’t do that.