Does the Defense's Case Hold Water?

No. The defense is WRONG.

Good morning. That was no fun.

Game 41: Pistons 124, Knicks 119

• The Knicks defense was never up to snuff, saving its worst for last by allowing two Malik Beasley corner threes in the final 40 seconds to seal their fate.

• Karl-Anthony Towns injured his thumb against the backboard on an early foul, but stayed in and played 43 minutes. He was asked repeatedly about it after the game, deflecting questions about whether he received x-rays or whether it was affecting him, saying only “it is what it is.”

• Jalen Brunson had his way with Detroit’s D with a team high 31 but made just 1-of-7 from deep (although he once again appears to be shooting with confidence).

• Mikal Bridges lit it up from deep, hitting 6-of-8 from behind the arc.

• Landry Shamet was back in the rotation but played four uninspiring first half minutes.

Let’s start at the end and work our way backwards, because even though there were quite a few reasons why the Knicks came up short last night, the most concerning ones were fully represented in the final Pistons possession.

The scene: following a quick Jalen Brunson 2-pointer to cut Detroit’s lead to two points, the Pistons had the ball with a five second difference between the shot clock and game clock. The Knicks needed a stop - something they couldn’t get on the previous Detroit possession, which went haywire after Jalen Brunson’s man (old friend THJ) screened for Cade Cunningham, who had positively decimated New York’s defense in the second half.

The Knicks didn’t concede the switch, which prompted a full rotation from Josh Hart to Timmy after Cade hit an open Hardaway Jr above the break, which then led to a wide open corner look from a guy who had hit 11 of his previous 16 attempts from downtown in this building, including 4-of-6 so far last night.

Make that 5-for-7.

Now, the Knicks had a chance at redemption, and it sure seemed like at least one person knew an identical play-call was incoming:

Did you see it?

Credit to JD Sports Talk and DJ Zullo for both being all over this in the immediate aftermath of the loss last night, but watch before the play develops as Jalen Brunson makes several overt hand signals to OG in the corner, who is covering Tobias Harris and seems to either not see him or ignore him.

One theory - the case cracker! - is that Brunson was signaling for Anunoby to pre-switch the action so that Jalen would go cover Harris in the corner while OG came over to guard Timmy. That would have given the Knicks an easy opportunity to switch the THJ/Cade screening action, or at the very least, would have made the Pistons make a tougher decision. Should we screen with Harris, who isn’t really an above-the-break threat? Or do we abandon the strategy altogether and try to post up Harris on Brunson?

We never found out, because the pre-switch never occurred, Brunson was brought into the action, and, well…

Make that 6-for-8 in the game and 13 of has last 18 from deep at MSG for Malik Beasley. Game over.

But of course there’s more to the story. Much more.