You Know It When You See It

Don't look now, but the Knicks are contenders.

Good morning!

How ‘bout those Knickerbockers?

Game 48: Knicks 122, Nuggets 112

• New York got off to a spectacular start, but couldn’t take advantage of two early Nikola Jokic fouls and led by just six at the break.

• The third quarter of doom briefly returned, and Denver completed a 20-point turnaround to go up eight.

• Behind a brilliant scoring burst from Jalen Brunson, the Knicks regained command and played some exceptional fourth quarter defense to secure the win.

• JB finished with 30 points and 15 assists, while OG Anunoby had 23 on 15 shots.

• Deuce and Precious were particularly strong off the bench.

I know it when I see it.

A little over 60 years ago, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart used these words to describe his personal threshold for what should and should not be considered obscene.

If nothing else, you have to admire the man’s candor. As a member of a legal body whose very job it is to come up with hard and fast rules for judgment, Judge Stewart readily admitted that when it came to porn, judgment had to be made on a case by case basis.

I sympathize completely. When it comes to judging whether an NBA team is or is not a contender, I feel the exact same way.

It used to be simple. Top 10 offense, top 10 defense, and boom, you were in the club. That was until the 2023 Denver Nuggets came along and broke the mold, proving that if you had an offense that was so good, merely being a middle of the pack defense might be enough to get the job done.

Since then, with offensive firepower where it is, the concept of contention is once again up in the air. That reality may have informed New York’s summer swing to add Karl-Anthony Towns to Jalen Brunson and form what they hoped would be the league’s most unstoppable offense. The gambit, of course, would be that they could construct a defense that was just good enough, much like Denver before them.

So how fitting it was that those very Nuggets came to town last night, bringing with them the best offense in the NBA over the previous month. If the Knicks wanted to prove that their defense was up to the task of winning four playoff rounds, they’d have to show it against a team like Denver.

Our eyes would not betray us. If we saw it, we’d know it, stats be damned.

Well, after as impressive a win as they’ve had all season, the Knicks look every bit the part of title contenders.

In this case, looks do not deceive.