In Defense of Paint Defense
At press time, according to Cleaning the Glass, the New York Knicks are the 23rd ranked defense in the NBA. Considering their 112.0 rating, they are the same distance away from the 10th ranked team as they are the last place Wizards. Given their lack of top end defensive talent, this number doesn't seem all that bad.
Of course if you've been watching, you know everything about the previous paragraph is deceiving because this team has been repeatedly carved up by the best of the best, as well as during many close games. They gave up a total of 42 triples on 80 attempts combined against the Raptors and Nuggets in recent weeks, and 11 separate times this season they've allowed an opponent to shoot above 40 percent from downtown. I've lost track of the games that were close with five minutes to go, only to get away in the end.
A lot of this may have had to do with David Fizdale's frenetic trapping/switching/hybrid-zone/wall off the paint/"what the hell am I watching" defensive scheme, and to be clear, outside of Damian Lillard going full flamethrower on Tuesday night, they have looked much better since Mike Miller took over. Allowing zero points over the final five minutes of their recent loss to the Pacers was an encouraging sign.
That doesn't mean there isn't still room for improvement. As the focus of this season has (hopefully) shifted fully towards developing the young men who will be here for a while, it's time to start considering whether the team is putting those core pieces in situations they can be most successful in. That starts with the man the Knicks should be building their defense around: Mitchell Robinson.
Even fair-weather fans know about Robinson's exploits by now. He is averaging four blocks and 1.3 steals per 36 minutes over the course of his shot NBA career. No one in NBA history has kept up those averages for as many games as Robinson has. For as much as he will still have the occasional brain fart (see: the shot that sent the Golden State game into overtime), he is an otherworldly talent.
He's also not being used properly. Far too often, we're seeing Robinson switched out onto the perimeter, even in the last few games.
This is a play that occurred the other night, early in the clock, when the Knicks (theoretically) should have already put themselves in ideal defensive positioning. Yet, instead of Mitchell Robinson guarding Willie Cauley-Stein down low, he gets matched up with Draymond Green on the perimeter. Given that Golden State's entire offense has been predicated on high pick and rolls involving Green for the past five years now, it's no surprise that Mitch winds up matched up on DeAngelo Russell.
At this point, Robinson is probably thinking about the upward trajectory of his foul rate this season, and how playing up on Russell might lead to disaster. This has been a running theme this year: Mitch doesn't want to pick up silly fouls on the perimeter, so when he's matched up onto a guard, he's been playing far off, and it yields the type of open look we see above.
That it missed is immaterial. That shot should never be allowed, and if Robinson was guarding the right man, it wouldn't have been because Randle could have played up knowing that Mitch would be close to the basket in case Russell blew by him. The inverse didn't hold true because Randle has barely more blocks this season than you and I do.
That's the reason you design a defense around a talent like Robinson: he cleans up so many mistakes around him. But you need to make a commitment to having him in the right position to make this happen.
The fact that Robinson and Randle didn't instantly know where their proper matchup was here leads me to assume this has not been made a priority. Judging from how often Mitch has been stuck guarding the perimeter this season, even given all the switching they were doing under Fiz (and really, because of it), it's safe to assume this isn't something the organization is emphasizing.
They should be. There's multiple ways to pull this off. Over the summer, Posting & Toasting's Dallas Amico wrote about the possibility of the Knicks using a "switch 1 through 4" defensive scheme, which would have some merit. Playing drop pick and roll coverage, which New York has been employing under Miller, will also help. Or, you know...continue drafting, signing and otherwise acquiring good defenders that allow you to play good old-fashioned man to man defense.
Anything that helps keep Robinson glued to the point would be an improvement. The season may be lost, but there's still time to get valuable reps that will pay off in the long run. On defense at least, those reps should start and end with Mitch as the centerpiece.
