Steve Popper: Knicks still a team in search of an identity
Knicks' Karl-Anthony Towns drives to the basket around James Harden of the Cavaliers on Feb. 24, 2026, in Cleveland, Ohio. Credit: Getty Images/Jason Miller
CLEVELAND — It’s a simple question, but the Knicks have not provided an answer yet.
Just what are the Knicks?
The team that has made clear its championship or bust aspirations this season? Or are they a team that doesn’t really know the answer to it, either?
Mike Brown was asked what the Knicks' identity is and said, “It’s evolving.” And that came before the 109-94 loss to the Cavs in a showcase opportunity on Tuesday night.
The Knicks, despite a sloppy, 11-turnover performance in the first half, still were trailing just 60-54 at the intermission. Then in the third quarter, they endured the sort of 12-minute performance that leaves you to wonder if this team will ever get it right.
“I think we’re still trying to figure it out,” Josh Hart said. “Still trying to figure out the style we want to play, the identity with which we want to play. I think that’s where those lulls come from. We have to collectively figure that out. Time is of the essence. So we’ve got to really spend the next 20 or so games in terms of really finding our identity and how we want to play and execute that.”
Shots falling or not certainly serves to hide or expose flaws in a team. And the Knicks, shooting 3-for-24 from the floor in the third — 1-for-12 from three — had all of their flaws on display. Brown often says that the Knicks rarely call plays, instead opting to play out of the flow and movement of their offensive concepts. Maybe this was a time to call a play.
Of the Knicks' 24 shots, Jalen Brunson took six and missed them all. Mikal Bridges was 1-for-7. The next most shots came from Mo Diawara, who was inserted into the game for the first time and fired up three three-pointers, missing all of them before getting pulled in favor of Jordan Clarkson, who hadn’t seen the court since before the All-Star break.
One player who didn’t have an attempt was Karl-Anthony Towns, who to that point had taken only four shots and hadn’t missed one. He got only one more with 8:28 remaining in the game and made it, finishing 5-for-5 for 14 points.
“The reality of it is our offense wasn’t flowing against Chicago,” Brown said. “It wasn’t flowing against Houston. And we found a way to bring some sort of energy, especially defensively, to the game. And then offensively, we were able to play with pace in those two games and got some easy baskets in transition. We were running through mud tonight no matter what happened. That was what was different than the other two nights.”
We are 59 games into the season and the Knicks still have a hard time showing who they are and what they can be.
The Knicks are now tied with Cleveland for the third spot in the Eastern Conference behind Detroit and Boston, 13-11 against the East teams with winning records. They came out of the All-Star break with matchups against two of the East’s top teams, Detroit and Cleveland, in the first four games and have just a pair of blowout losses to show for it.
The team is loaded with expectations, having reached the conference finals last season and returning the entire starting five and key bench pieces, adding on to the roster to fill out holes. What happens now isn’t an indication of the postseason hopes. Last year the Knicks lost all four games to Cleveland and Boston and then knocked off Boston in the second round while Cleveland was knocked off by Indiana in the same round.
"We’re still becoming a better team every single day,” Brunson said. “We’re not trying to be a final product by game 60.”
“We’ve just got to be the best version of ourselves come playoff time,” Towns said. “Right now, we’re all trying to figure it out. We’re figuring out the system, the new things we’re dealing with, the nuances that go with it, the changes we’re trying to make. It’s still a work in progress. I know being in New York, everybody wants the finished product right now. You want instant gratification. But we’re still trying to figure out a lot. We still feel like a fresh team, still got a lot of things we’re trying to figure out in the system. I’m still trying to figure out the system. We’re all trying to figure out the system so we can impact winning the most.”
Do you take their word for it, that the best is yet to come? Or do you wonder if in 59 games, you’ve seen it all already and this roller coaster is just how it will be for this team?
“I’ve seen teams come together pretty late and win a chip,” Towns said. “I think for us, we’ve just got to continue to have our head down, block out the noise and continue to find ways to improve every single day. Because at the end of the day, when the playoff time comes and the ball goes up, there ain’t no more time. We’ve got to have it figured out.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
