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Today marks five days without Knicks basketball, as a week-long wait to determine their opponent in the Eastern Conference Finals slowly draws to an end. Whether it’s tonight in Cleveland or Sunday in Detroit, the Knicks will know their opponents soon enough.
But who should Knicks fans want to face with a trip to the NBA Finals on the line? Well, with a massive Game 6 just hours away, let’s break down the pros and cons of both potential opponents as we creep closer to the Knicks finally getting back on the hardwood.
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Why they should want the Pistons:
✅ Lack of ballhandlers around Cade Cunningham: The worst-kept secret around Detroit’s offense is their lack of creating offense when Cunningham sits or doesn’t have the ball in his hands. St. John’s product Daniss Jenkins has served as the team’s secondary ballhandler, but has been extremely inconsistent. There have been times when, if Cunningham is held under wraps and is turning the ball over, their offense grinds to a halt.
✅ Limited 3-point shooting: The Knicks’ defense has been one of the best in basketball since late January, but they’ve still struggled in one key metric. Defending the perimeter has been a massive problem all season long, and they’ve allowed teams to grill them from beyond the arc many times, including the Pistons themselves. That said, the law of averages seems to suggest that a team that was 17th in 3pt% and 29th in 3pa per game isn’t much of a threat behind the arc.
They’ve actually shot it pretty well overall in this series against Cleveland, but they continue to attempt under 30 per game. A team shooting 10/25 from three is less impactful than a team shooting 14/35, even if both are 40%, so the Knicks won’t have to worry about Celtics-esque barrages even on good shooting nights.
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✅ Jalen Duren’s struggles: You know what’s interesting? Of the 12 games Duren has missed this season, three of them were against the Knicks, so he hasn’t played them since Game 6 of last year’s first-round matchup. Even though we didn’t see him live, he put up an All-NBA caliber season and truly emerged…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/knicks-want-face-pistons-cavs-183000393.html
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Publish date : 2026-05-15 18:30:00
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