The playoffs have arrived and thanks to the scriptwriters’ magic, we’ll get to witness a sure-to-be-entertaining series between the Knicks and the upstart Detroit Pistons. Cade Cunningham and his young, physical team will look to build off their 3-1 drubbing of the Knicks during the regular season, while Jalen Brunson attempts to lead New York to another first-round victory.
Let’s dive into the many angles in what’s expected to be a tough and close series.
First and foremost, the Pistons will want to continue punishing a Knicks defense that’s had no answers for them the past three games. Detroit’s recorded an offensive rating of over 120 in each of their wins over New York, despite finishing the season at 114.5, just above average in the league.
That offense starts with Cunningham, who’s averaging 30.8 points, five rebounds and 8.3 assists on 56.3 percent shooting from the field and 52 percent from three against New York this season. He displayed a mastery of the pick-and-roll against the Knicks, demolishing every coverage they threw at him.
Head coach Tom Thibodeau’s preferred coverage is for the big to drop, requiring Cunningham’s defender to stay attached over screens less the 6-foot-8 guard get into his mid-range zone with options. The problem is the Knicks largely didn’t guard him with the requisite physicality and intensity, letting him walk into whatever shot he wanted.
Cunningham was comfortable pulling up from three if the screen was strong enough to pin his defender — which happened often between the big bodies of Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart. If his defender was chasing, Cunningham put him in jail navigating into the arc, where he easily found the best available option between pulling up, hitting the roll man or taking it to the cup himself.
Now most of this happened against Karl-Anthony Towns, Precious Achiuwa and Ariel Hukporti, so having Mitchell Robinson back will be crucial. Expect him to play a big role in this series, and maybe even get inserted into the starting lineup if things get desperate.
New York tried switching up coverages in small spurts, but lacked the execution behind the adjustments, and Cunningham feasted anyway. The Knicks tried hedging hard on his screens but were often late or lacking the requisite backline help and Cunningham easily picked them apart.
Switching everything and letting him isolate against his favored matchup makes sense to get him out of pick-and-roll, where 40 percent of his offense comes from, and into isolations, where he’s less efficient and makes up only 11 percent of his offense. However when the Knicks tried it, he just picked on Brunson with ease, getting to the rim and scoring.
None of the smaller Knick guards fared well against Cunningham’s size. Mikal Bridges spent the most matchup time on Cunningham by far, holding him to a surprising 8-for-21 shooting and two turnovers in 21 minutes, despite looking outmatched physically at times.
Next was Miles McBride who gave up 11-for-15 shooting in just nine minutes, while Brunson spent four minutes on him, giving up 9-for-14 shooting. OG Anunoby only got six minutes on Cunningham, allowing 7-for-11 shooting.
Matchup data is notoriously unreliable, but expect to see much more of Anunoby on Cunningham. He might struggle a bit with his quickness, but if he can be physical and get over screens, he should be able to give Cunningham the most issues.
The Knicks as a team need to be much more physical and on point defensively with Cunningham. When they were actually in his chest and bumping him, he looked far less comfortable.
Expect drop out of the gates, but New York should throw in some more aggressive coverages to throw Cunningham out of rhythm and make other (less threatening) playmakers beat them. He’ll be constantly calling for screens from Brunson’s man, so expect him to be involved and have to hold his own defensively as well.
The Knicks will have to be careful not to overplay Cunningham, and hope that Anunoby and a more concerted team effort slows him down without giving up too many good looks to others. Despite being a middling three-point shooting team, Detroit lit New York up from deep in a couple wins, largely due to a pair of 20-point, 6+ three games from Malik Beasley.
Detroit has reliable, tested vets in Tobias Harris and Tim Hardaway Jr., along with Dennis Schroder off the bench — not the most threatening names but definitely capable of hurting you. The good news is the Knicks should be set if they can slow down Cunningham — the Pistons score 109.7 points per 100 possessions when he’s on the bench, which would rank bottom-five in the league.
Another means of slowing the Pistons down will be negating their transition attack. Detroit ranks third in percentage of points coming off fast breaks and are nearly top 10 in forcing opponent turnovers.
In the game the Knicks won, they had 10 turnovers, and proceeded to throw away the ball 15, 18, and 17 times in their ensuing losses. They don’t have the athletes to run with the Pistons, and so will need to limit their mistakes offensively and focus on getting back on defense.
On the rebounding front, both teams are pretty evenly matched on the season. This will be a battle of who wants it more, and in this tight a series, will likely decide its key games.
The good news is, if the Knicks can dominate these areas, they should be in good shape for the series. The Pistons managed to slow down their offense a couple times, but this should be easier to figure out for the Knicks than the other side of the ball.
One player with a clear advantage is Towns, who only averaged 24 points in the series but looked leagues above their opposing bigs. Although Duren and Stewart are more mobile than most fives, Towns is much stronger, more experienced in playoff ball, and should be able to punish them from deep.
The Pistons didn’t incorporate putting a wing on Towns and their center on Josh Hart like many other teams, and that could change in the postseason if Towns burns them too much. Still, he should be able to dominate their wings effectively.
New York as a whole should be cognizant of their superior beefiness in light of their worse speed and verticality. One player that should lean into this offensively is Anunoby, who came off a monster scoring month by bulldozing his way through the paint.
The Knicks will need to power their way into the paint and punish the Pistons by spraying to shooters for three. New York is a different threat when it takes and makes threes, and will need it to be a point of emphasis for this series and beyond.
As mentioned, limiting turnovers is a major swing factor as well. A big chunk of Detroit’s offensive efficiency comes from their transition game, and New York can’t afford to beat themselves with costly mistakes.
There’s other considerations like how the bench performs and how the Knicks spread the offense around, but no question is bigger than does Brunson go god mode again?
Brunson has spent a few postseasons climbing from fearsome to historic big-game scorer. As a reminder of those still doubtful, he averaged 31 points and closed the series on a 111-point three-game stretch against the eventual runner-up Miami Heat in 2023 and became the first player since Michael Jordan with four consecutive 40-point playoff games last year.
Simply put, Brunson is a star playoff riser and can single-handedly carry a Knicks offense deep into the postseason if necessary. So long as that remains true, Knicks fans shouldn’t have much to worry about until Boston or Cleveland.
Detroit will have more size than the average team to throw at Brunson, and can deploy aggressive coverages and zones with their speed and backline defense. But he’s seen many variations of that before, and this shouldn’t be too different.
Prediction: this series will be a war of attrition, ultimately going to the Knicks in 6.
