The Knicks busted one myth and the Pistons should be paying attention

One question hanging over the New York Knicks was whether a team could win the championship if one of their best players was a defensive liability.  

Jalen Brunson is an elite offensive player, but he’s a target on defense, and there were questions about whether teams would be able to exploit that enough to make him a problem NY couldn't solve.

The Knicks gave their answer as they stormed through the Eastern Conference and made short work of the Spurs. So the answer is yes, you can win a title with Brunson, consider that myth put to rest.

The Pistons have had the opposite problem in that they have several elite defenders who don’t offer much on the offensive end, and the Knicks have shown that the Pistons are in a position to compromise without creating a weak link. 

The Pistons can hide a bad defender 

There has been a lot of debate whether a player like Tyler Herro is a liability in the playoffs and whether the Pistons can afford to have another one-way player in the rotation. 

Those concerns are real, but the Pistons have enough defense to absorb a bad defender, just as the Knicks were able to do with Brunson. The Knicks actually had two suspect defenders, but Karl-Anthony Towns stepped up in the Finals and played his best defense of the season. 

I have to believe that 22-year-old Jalen Duren can at least play KAT level defense in the playoffs, and if that weren’t the case, the Pistons probably shouldn’t bring him back. 

The Pistons have the best perimeter defender in the league in Ausar Thompson, a very good defensive player in Cade Cunningham and just about every guy they bring off the bench is a defensive-focused player. 

They are going to have to balance that ratio if they want to hang with the elite offenses, so any additions the Pistons make this summer have to bolster the offense, even if that means chipping away at their defensive depth. 

It’s all about coaching and the half court 

I thought JB Bickerstaff actually did a great job with the Pistons offense this season considering what he had to work with. He basically had one good shooter, no bench scoring, and by the end of it, a guy who was a two-way player in the starting lineup. 

Despite that, the Pistons finished 9th in offensive rating in the regular season, which coupled with their top 2 defensive rating, looks like the recipe for a championship team, but those numbers are misleading. 

The Pistons scored a ton of easy buckets in transition off their defense and feasted on Jalen Duren dunks in the pick and roll, two things that weren’t as available in in the playoffs, when teams tighten up, fast break points are harder to come by and teams have time to plan for your pet plays. 

The Pistons have to improve in the half-court offense to progress in the playoffs, as you have to be able to score against the best defenses when the game slows down. When you watch the Finals, you see the kind of elite, high degree of difficulty shotmaking it takes to win it all, and the Pistons aren’t there. 

They don’t have to sell out their identity, but the Pistons can afford to make small compromises to improve the offense.

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