Hey there, Last Night In Basketballers — I am, as I do every year, re-appropriating the Three Things I Noticed on League Pass format to preview the upcoming season. Instead of three things I noticed, it’ll be something more along the lines of three things I’m looking forward to, interested in, or want to see. Some of them might be narrative-based, some might be stats, and some might include video. But they'll all be focused on the 2026-27 campaign.
The schedule for those posts will be as follows (podcasts previewing each division with Mo Dakhil are in parentheses):
- Atlantic Division (BOS, BKN, NYK, PHI, TOR) (Podcast)
- Central Division (CHI, CLE, DET, IND, MIL) (Podcast)
- Southeast Division (ATL, CHA, MIA, ORL, WAS) (Podcast)
- Pacific Division (GSW, LAC, LAL, PHX, SAC) (Podcast)
- Northwest Division (DEN, MIN, OKC, POR, UTA) (Podcast)
- Southwest Division (DAL, HOU, MEM, NOP, SAS) (Podcast)
So without further ado, let's get to the defending champion New York Knicks, who made my dreams come true.
Karl-Anthony Towns, defensive anchor
A bad defender for the significant majority of his time in the NBA, Towns had what was likely the best defensive regular season of his career last year. It was a massive improvement over his first year in New York, which, if you recall, ended with a blistering story in The Athletic that detailed how frustrated teammates would get with his inability or unwillingness to execute the correct coverage at the correct time.
It was an encouraging sign, then, that he graded out better than ever in basically every advanced metric. He finished 24th in the entire league in Defensive EPM, for example, and four of the guys ahead of him played 30 or fewer games. He also finished with strongly positive marks in Neil Paine's defensive LAKER and Bball-Index's D-LEBRON.
Even his rim protection numbers at NBA Advanced Stats were better. He allowed the 33rd-lowest conversion rate out of 109 defenders who were within 5 feet of both the rim and the shooter at least 3 times per game. The 55.9% conversion rate was almost 9 full percentage points better than the one he allowed the year before (64.8%). The only time he ever posted a better mark was when he played just 35 games during the 2019-20 season.
That was all great. But in the playoffs, Towns hit another level entirely. He was legitimately fantastic defensively. It was a sight to see.
Towns challenged an additional shot per game at the rim, and allowed an even lower conversion rate of 54.5%. He was incredible defending pick and rolls. According to GeniusIQ, there were 33 defenders that had at least 100 ball screens run at them while they were defending the screener during the playoffs. Towns ranked fourth among that group in points allowed per direct screen (0.844), sitting just behind Victor Wembanyama (0.816) on almost identical volume (413 screens for Towns to 409 for Wemby).
He also made one of the biggest defensive plays of the season when he tipped the inbounds pass that would have set up an alley-oop for Stephon Castle and won the game for the Spurs and essentially erased OG Anunoby's legendary tip-in in Game 4 of the Finals. He was everywhere, all the time.
We know he has this in him now. That gives the Knicks a much different ceiling in the playoffs than we thought they had when they traded for him. We saw that in action when they won the title. The only question about his defense now is whether he can sustain the same level over the course of an entire season, and whether it's actually smart for him to ramp it up to that level over 82 games or else conserve some of himself for another playoff run. Either way is just fine by me, and it should be just fine by the Knicks, as well.