Knicks May Need to Defensively Adjust Around Star Center

He's not the fleetest of foot out on the perimeter, which will continue providing Turner with spot-up opportunities if he's able to keep getting his shots off as quickly as he did to start last night's first quarter with five straight buckets without a miss.

While Turner, as good as he is at 6'11, will determine his makes or misses no matter how he's contested, KAT's drop coverage was routinely taken advantage of by Haliburton and friends.

NBA.com's tracking data credited the All-Star Towns with personally defending 26 shots last night to lead all players by a fair amount, where players like Haliburton could attack him with a head of steam and take him downhill. This drew consistent help when Towns' teammates determined that he'd been beat, and he allowed a dozen buckets to fall on his watch.

The Knicks aren't likely to suddenly switch KAT's approach to at-the-level switching, with New York head coach Tom Thibodeau determining that the drop is the best way to keep Towns from getting in trouble by the arc and maintaining his value as a backpedaling rim protecter with size, but he and his teammates need to maintain their effort when keeping up with the running Pacers. Too many times did Indiana score with the kind of ease that the Knicks couldn't match, benefitting off of miscommunications and a lack of intensity at all the wrong times.

The Knicks knew that Indiana would try to use their stamina to their advantage before the series even started, yet still allowed the Pacers to get the better of them in the Eastern Conference Finals opener.

KAT's return to form as a shooter gives him more reason to see the floor than he did in the second round, but his defensive lapses flip that into a double-edged sword. He'll be a consistent target game after game, and the Knicks will have to whip into shape now that they've already lost home court advantage.