With a 2-8 stretch, history suggests Knicks’ NBA Finals dreams could be in peril

When New York Knicks forward Karl-Anthony Towns put up a 3-pointer with about a minute left against the Phoenix Suns Saturday night to try and cut into the vistors’ seven-point lead, Knicks fans inside Madison Square Garden were cheering in anticipation in what could’ve been the spark to ignite a comeback. But the shot sailed wide left, missing everything and landing out of bounds.

Fans began booing the Knicks, and the players’ body language following the airball showed visible frustration as they were headed for their third consecutive loss, and eighth in their last 10 games.

After the game, Knicks coach Mike Brown sided with the fans in their booing, saying “the fans have every right to boo” after another disappointing loss.

If the Knicks’ resolution for the new year was to win an NBA championship, this certainly isn’t inspiring confidence of that happening. They have a 2-7 record in January, and the only team with a worse record is the Utah Jazz, a team that has just 14 wins on the season. 

While it may seem like just a rough patch in a long season, in the history of the league there haven’t been a significant number of instances where a team has gone 2-8 at any point in the regular season and went on to win a championship. In fact, only six NBA champions have ever done that, per CBS Sports’ research department.

NBA Finals teams with 2-8 span in same season

The last team to do it was the 2021-22 Warriors, who had the greatest shooter in NBA history on their team in Stephen Curry and caught fire in the NBA Finals en route to his first Finals MVP. That’s not to say the Knicks can’t rebound from this poor showing, and there’s certainly tons of evidence showing that a team can still make the Finals despite having a 2-8 span. But the Knicks don’t want to just get a participation trophy for getting to the NBA Finals, the goal is to hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy in June.

So what’s been going on with this team as of late? Jalen Brunson’s has missed the last two games with an ankle injury, which certainly doesn’t help matters. But even with Brunson back fully healthy, he’s not covering up the biggest issue plaguing the Knicks this season.

The defense has been awful

The Knicks have no problem putting points on the board. Yes, in this 10-game rough patch they’ve fallen from a third-best offense all season to 21st, but that can be explained by a matter of shooting variance. The Knicks have been the third-best 3-point shooting team all season, but in January that’s fallen to 23rd. They’re still getting up roughly the same number of 3s per game (around 39 per game), so no one’s taking that shot away from them, but the efficiency has dipped. Mikal Bridges, who has hovered around 43.1% on his 3s through the first three months, has fallen to 35.6% in January. Across December and January, OG Anunoby has been ice cold from deep.

Because of that poor shooting there’s been a tendency to over-rely on Brunson’s ability to take a defender one-on-one, which creates a more stagnant offense, but those are easier fixes. And we’ve seen the Knicks cut down on the isolation attempts this season compared to the last few years where the gameplan was typically just letting Brunson dominate the ball and either take it himself, or collapse the defense and kick it out to a shooter. There’s room for the offense to bounce back.

The defense, however, hasn’t been good at all this season. What was once a calling card for New York has now become its Achilles heel. The team rank is 19th in defense, and over the last 10 games, that’s been even worse, as only the lowly Jazz have allowed more points than the blue and orange during this pitiful stretch.

Part of the issue can be summed up by this single possession in a recent 112-101 road loss to the Kings.

Brown called Towns out for his lack of urgency to get back on defense, as well as several other instances not just by him, but by the whole team. 

“When you fall down, you got to get up,” Brown said after the game. “You got to sprint down the floor, and even if you’re the last guy down the floor, you got to get down there, just in case there’s a long rebound. But there was no urgency. Now, that wasn’t the only play. There were a handful of plays where we did that, but there was no sense urgency on that particular play to get back. And it was a five-point swing.”

Against the Warriors, the Knicks built up a 17-point lead in the first quarter, and then things began to fall apart defensively. There was no communication to make up for breakdowns in rotations, and they were caught sleeping on a number of occasions that created easy backdoor cuts for the Warriors.

Jimmy Butler took over in that game doing typically Jimmy Butler stuff. He’s going to outwork you, he’s going to fight for second and third scoring opportunities and make life difficult for you on the other end. The Knicks have great individual defenders in Bridges, Anunoby and Hart, but, as a team, the constant breakdowns make this group vulnerable.

They’re one of the worst teams at defending the 3-point line. Opponents are shooting 37.3% on 3s this season against the Knicks, which has increased to 39% in the last 10 games. Guys aren’t putting in effort to close out on the perimeter, as most of the 3s opponents take against the Knicks are coming on wide-open looks.

Knicks’ 3-point defense, 2025-26 season

Brown predicted his team’s defensive struggles a few weeks ago after a win against the Pelicans, where where the Knicks narrowly escaped with a five-point victory against a New Orleans team that to that point in the season had only won eight games.

“We haven’t figured out how to be physical for 48 minutes in the last I don’t know how many games,” Brown said. “We pick up some some silly fouls that we have to do a better job of. I feel everybody understands that, but now we just have to go do it. Our physicality is not good. I don’t know if we’re tired or what, but we have not been able to sustain anything defensively for 48 minutes. We’ve won a lot of games, and you want to win games, and you feel good about it. But at the end of the day, if we don’t figure out how to sustain what we’re supposed to do on the defensive end of the floor for 48 minutes it’s going to be a long year for us, and it’s going to eventually catch up to us.”

Just two and a half weeks after Brown said that and it’s already caught up to the Knicks in the worst way possible.

Should the Knicks be concerned?

Absolutely. If they can’t figure out their defensive issues, then forget winning a championship, they could get taken out far before then if they’re not careful. Sure, teams have been known to flip a switch when the postseason rolls around, and the Knicks could certainly become more engaged with the motivation of winning a title fueling them. But right now is when that should be put into practice. 

If this worrying trend doesn’t turn itself around, it could be an issue the Knicks try to address on the trade market. There’s been trade rumors in the past connecting the Knicks and Giannis Antetokounmpo, and he’d certainly cover up a ton of weaknesses defensively. The Knicks have also been attached to Pelicans guard Jose Alvarado, whose made a name for himself as an all-out effort guy who is also a defensive pest. Think of him as another Josh Hart out there, which something that the Knicks would certainly love.

If there’s not a trade that materializes, then the Knicks will have to look in the mirror and figure out how to mitigate this issue from within. Otherwise they could be the next in a long list of teams who might make the Finals, but fall short of capturing a title because their defense just isn’t up to the task.