Knicks in third place in the Eastern Conference despite being a work in progress

The Knicks have played some inspired ball here in the early part of the 2024-25 season. When everything is clicking, it’s a beautiful thing to see. All five players on the court sharing the ball, willingly passing up a good shot for a better one, regardless of who’s on the receiving end of the pass. Of course, it hasn’t been all roses and there’s been a lot of defensive breakdowns and off nights shooting the ball. The end result is a 16-10 record, good for third in the Eastern Conference.

Last year’s team, which won 50 games, was 15-11 after their first 26 tilts. They finished 2023 with a 17-15 mark. We got to see last season’s team show its potential in January, after the trade for OG Anunoby, when the Knicks went 14-2. Unfortunately, a season-ending injury to Julius Randle, along with an injury to Anunoby, kept the Knicks from being at full strength the rest of the 2023-24 campaign. Despite all the injuries, they advanced to the second round of the playoffs.

With the trades for Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns, the expectations were to be better than they were last season. The hope is the team will exceed 50 wins and the expectation is that the club will reach at least one level more than they did previously, which would mean a trip to the Eastern Conference finals.

The first game this year was against the defending champion Celtics and resulted in a blowout loss in Boston, when the Celtics couldn’t miss a shot from deep, as they hit 29 3-pointers. Some of that was good shooters for the champs. Some of that was rotten defense from the Knicks. Two games later, the Knicks dropped a closer battle against the Cavaliers, because of a poor fourth quarter, where the Cavs outscored the Knicks by 10 and came away with a 6-point win.

The Knicks haven’t played the two teams ahead of them in the Eastern Conference since.

It was unrealistic to expect the Knicks to be firing on all cylinders to start the year, especially with injuries to two of their big men, which really limited their bench. Precious Achiuwa has returned and played in five games. The timetable for Mitchell Robinson is unknown. At the start of the season, the expectation was that it would be December/January. It won’t be December and few will be surprised if it extends into February.

Towns has been great offensively and is leading the league with an average of 13.9 rebounds per game. But while he’s played very well, he’s simply not as much of a deterrent on the defensive end – or as good as an offensive rebounder – as Robinson. It’s not fair to put all of the blame on the Knicks’ poor performance in pick-and-roll situations on Towns. But he likely carries the biggest share.

It’s impossible to predict how good this Knicks team can be without knowing if Robinson can be a factor or not. Certainly, a team that could feature Robinson and Towns together would be a good match for Cleveland’s two 7-footers.

But it remains to be seen if Robinson in the game would mess up the offensive flow.

It may be too much to expect Robinson to be able to come back and be the player he was before his first injury last season, when he seemed on track to be the Defensive Player of the Year, while being a menace on the offensive boards. It won’t be easy for Tom Thibodeau to plan for a team both with and without Robinson being on the floor, whether that’s for 15 minutes a night or 30.

My hope is that Thibodeau increases the minutes for Achiuwa, who’s played fewer than 20 minutes in four of his five games this year. The Knicks need his size, which allows Anunoby to play more minutes at the small forward spot, pushing Bridges to the big guard spot.

But if they do that, the question is: Who gets bumped from the starting lineup – Bridges or Josh Hart? Right now, you could make a case for either one. What’s not up for debate is that Hart will be on the floor at the end of any close game.

So, even 26 games into the 2024-25, the Knicks are far from a finished product. The good news is that Thibodeau has experience in adjusting on the fly. The Knicks don’t play either of the top two teams in the Eastern Conference until they play the Celtics on Feb. 8 in Madison Square Garden. The hope is that the squad has figured out their defensive shortcomings by then, regardless if Robinson is in the picture or not.