SACRAMENTO — Opposing teams have regularly used a wing to defend Karl-Anthony Towns and a center to defend Josh Hart.
It’s a strategy built to stop Towns on the perimeter while allowing Hart, who has struggled on treys this season, more room on the 3-point line.
The Knicks, for the most part, have failed to take advantage of the size mismatches heading into Monday’s 133-104 win against the Kings.
It killed their offense.
Hart and Towns offered two ways they can counter the strategy.
“If you’re going to put an undersized player on me, you get a chance to put me in the mid-post, the low post,” Towns said. “And I think that’s probably best.”
Hart said he should get more involved in the offense and pick up the pace if he’s defended by a center.
“Probably more so to play through me or put me in actions. It’s something that I’m comfortable with … did pick-and-rolls with [Jalen Brunson] and those kind of things. So I’m comfortable with it,” Hart said. “Other thing is, just playing faster, making whoever that center is guard and move.
“Whether that’s transition, dribble handoffs, having me handle on pick-and-rolls because obviously centers, I don’t think they ever guarded a pick-and-roll while really guarding the ball handler. Other stuff like that, to make them move. I think that’s the biggest thing.”
The Knicks’ struggles with that defensive alignment are partly why their offense has plummeted since the All-Star break.
“I think we could do a better job everywhere. We can be sharper all around,” Towns said. “We just got to get both sides to match up with each other. I think the last game we did a good job on defense, and we just didn’t have the offense to go with it. The funny thing is the offense has carried us all year and the time we needed the offense to be just a little there, we couldn’t get it there. So these are good tests for us to see how we can win in different ways.
“I think a lot of times, we’ve won close games because of our offense and not really our defense. And now we have a chance, we put ourselves in these games against great opponents where our defense stood up but our offense didn’t show up. So we need to find different ways to win because when it comes that time at the end of the year, it may not always be us scoring 120, 130 points. It’s going to sometimes be 90, 80-something for the Knicks. So this is a good test for us.”
The Kings, who were facing the Knicks on the second night of a back-to-back, were missing All-Star Domantas Sabonis, who suffered a hamstring strain.
The Knicks were healthy outside of Brunson, who left the team to recover from his severe ankle sprain.
