Through Tom Thibodeau’s run as head coach, the New York Knicks have adopted his style of play with enthusiasm.
As one of the hard-nosed and best defensive teams in the NBA, the Knicks know they’ll be a hard out for any team in the modern run-and-gun offensive systems.
Even still, with an offseason infusion of precisely those kind of offensive players, there was some concern that the Knicks had given up their defensive identity in favor of scoring points.
Those concerns ended in their Friday home-opening win over the Indiana Pacers. The 123-98 win over the offensive team that knocked them out of the postseason last year showed that New York’s defensive identity is still alive and well.
“Listen, if we play defense the way we played tonight—we haven’t had any problems scoring the basketball, but the defensive side—if we can have an identity, I think that we could be a really good team and we could do some magical things,” Karl-Anthony Towns said after the win.
Even more impressive outside of the defensive intensity was the fight New York showed coming off a 132-109 loss to the Boston Celtics on Tuesday night.