The New York Knicks remain one of the harder teams in the East to figure out. Overall, they look like a contender, but at the beginning of 2026 they were on a horrific losing streak that cast serious doubts in the minds of fans about their chances of success. Now, once again, they seem to be back to their best.<\/p>\n
The pieces are the same as a year ago when the Knicks made it to the Conference Finals, except for a change at coach with Mike Brown. They have improved defensively and have proven they can light up the scoreboard. They went toe to toe with the defending champion Thunder a few nights ago, losing by just three, and then last night put a beating on the Nuggets, 142-103, in Denver. When the pieces are working, they are fun to watch.<\/p>\n
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The Knicks<\/a>\u2018 biggest superstar in their bid to compete? There is no doubt it is Jalen Brunson<\/a>. But not everyone is confident about him being a reliable protagonist come the postseason, and that list includes J.R. Smith.<\/p>\n The former Knick and two-time NBA Champion addressed this during his appearance on To The Baha. He began by urging the No. 3 seed to figure out the chemistry issues between Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns.<\/p>\n \u201cFigure it out. At some point, if you want to win, you\u2019re gonna have to figure it out. And if you don\u2019t, somebody gonna go this way and somebody gonna go that way. But to me it\u2019s harder to win when your two biggest stars are fighting for the ball,\u201d claimed Smith.<\/p>\n Smith<\/a>is a respected veteran of the league, but this take feels somewhat misplaced. Brunson and KAT have played together for nearly two full seasons now. In their first year together, they took the Knicks further than the franchise had gone in 25 years. This season, they are firmly in the playoff picture and, despite a surprisingly deep Eastern Conference, look capable of going toe to toe with most opponents.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Still, Smith insisted that Towns<\/a>needed to demand the ball more. \u201cYou can\u2019t tell him to throw you the ball. You\u2019re not demanding the ball. You\u2019re not demanding space. He\u2019s not gonna throw you the ball, and I wouldn\u2019t throw you the ball either,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Smith then delivered his biggest take, arguing that the Knicks will struggle to go deep in the playoffs with Brunson as their primary scorer because of his size. \u201cIt\u2019s a hard way to win in the NBA with small guards. Everybody knows that. I played against it. It\u2019s not that hard to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n Some members of the panel agreed, and history does lend some support to Smith\u2019s point. The only true outliers often mentioned are Allen Iverson, Isiah Thomas, and Stephen Curry. Detroit, for instance, has defended Jalen particularly well<\/a> in their matchups. However, that came at a time when Towns was not as involved in Mike Brown\u2019s game plan. Since that shift, the Knicks have looked like a different team.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n That is not to say Smith is alone in his thinking. Smaller guards are generally easier to contain in a league dominated by size and length. Still, there is always room for exceptions. Brunson may only be 6\u20192\u2033, but that has not stopped him from tormenting opposing defenses since entering the NBA.<\/p>\n The post NBA Champion Says Knicks Will Struggle to Win a Title With Jalen Brunson<\/a> appeared first on The SportsRush<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Knicks remain one of the harder teams in the East to figure out. Overall, they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,301,187,296,17575,288,563,3357,6,6027,191,573],"class_list":{"0":"post-646435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-denver","10":"tag-denver-nuggets","11":"tag-detroit","12":"tag-j-r-smith","13":"tag-jalen-brunson","14":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","15":"tag-mike-brown","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-nba-champion","18":"tag-new-york-knicks","19":"tag-stephen-curry"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116191541612049858","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}