DETROIT – The Knicks return to the site of the biggest shot of Jalen Brunson’s Knicks career, where he silenced the profane chants of Detroit fans by sending Ausar Thompson staggering out of frame with a crossover.
Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns and the Knicks captured Little Caesars Arena in the first round just eight months ago.
Now they return Monday night as underdogs and face perhaps the biggest threat to their goal: reaching the NBA Finals.
The Pistons (26-9) are three games back of the Knicks (23-12) for first place in the conference, with Cade Cunningham, who – along with Boston’s Jaylen Brown – can stake a legitimate claim against Brunson for the East’s best player this season.
It’s a showdown with extra spice, the first head-to-head matchup between Pistons and Knicks of the season: No. 1 in the conference versus No. 2.
But all coach Mike Brown can think about is getting his team to a better place.
Because now? His Knicks are sliding.
“It doesn’t really matter to us [that we’re playing the Pistons]. It is the one standing in front of us. We have to figure out how to play the right way on both sides of the field and win. It’s that simple,” Brown said. “Our mentality is that everyone is just trying to bring a little bit more.
“A little bit more defensively. A little bit more offensively, to get over the hump. There’s nothing tricky or magical that we’re going to come up with in a matter of two days. We just know we can bring a little bit more to the table.”
Brown’s point is well taken. In the grand scheme of things, a January matchup – regardless of opponent – is meaningless.
Despite Adam Silver’s attempts to make the regular season a little more attractive, it remains mostly a sludge with too many DNPs, injuries and very few results that change the big picture.
Take Monday night, for example: The Pistons are missing two starters, Jalen Duren (ankle) and Tobias Harris (hip). They will participate in the second game of a back-to-back after flying from Cleveland following Sunday’s 114-110 win over the Cavaliers. Cunningham recorded a tough 37 minutes.
There’s probably revenge on the Pistons’ minds — a desire to show they truly belong in the field — but they’re not at full strength.
So what does it prove if they lose?
The Knicks, meanwhile, are without Josh Hart, who is nursing a sprained ankle. They arrive in Motown at a low point and are experiencing their first three-game losing streak of the season.
The defense is a hot mess, filled with lax attempts to fight through screens and a dizzying strategy of forcing opponents into the middle instead of the baseline.
They ranked 16th in defense before Sunday and a pathetic 26th in their last ten games. The Pistons ranked second in defense before Sunday. That was the difference between the two teams.
“Right now we’re not as physical as we should be at the point of attack,” Brown said. “We don’t often navigate the ball screen the way we really should be at the point of attack. And when we do, we pick up a foul here, a foul there. And we send guys to the free throw line. So our physicality, as well as our shifts, has to be better so we can help protect that paint a little bit more.”
It’s an issue that could be exacerbated against Cunningham, who is as good as anyone at breaking down a defense and capitalizing on switches.
So the Knicks have a double challenge on Monday, and they’re not mutually exclusive:
Get off the schneid and beat the team with the best record in the East.
“It’s the first time we’ve lost three in a row [since Games 3-5 of the season]. So we’re in an area that we’re not used to,” Brown said. ‘We’ve had a bit of a setback. I’ve never been on a team that didn’t experience adversity all year long, whether we won at the end of the season or were in the finals. Or we had a halfway decent season. Every team is up for it. And now the important thing for us is: how do we respond? How do we get out? So it’s a great opportunity for us to see what we’re made of.”
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