How the Knicks offense keeps getting exposed

CHARLOTTE – They were back-to-back plays in the worst offensive half of the season, a stretch emblematic of a problem Josh Hart is worried will become the blueprint to dismantle the Knicks scoring weapons.With about 7:15 left in the second quarter, Jalen Brunson’s Mavericks defender, Quentin Grimes, was screened by Karl-Anthony Towns.The screen was weak, almost non-existent, but Grimes still switched to defend Towns as Maxi Kleber took care of Brunson on the ball.The Knicks (10-8), naturally and predictably, hunted the size mismatch.

Towns received a pass at the top of the key and squared up against the much smaller Grimes, who is an apt defender and deceptively strong.Towns laboriously backed him down, using three dribbles to get to the paint before he was quickly met by a double team.The hook shot didn’t even touch the rim.About 30 seconds later, the same mismatch developed after a switch.

Hart threw the ball into the post to Towns, who backed down too forcefully on Grimes and was whistled for a charge.Turnover.The Knicks, in that moment, failed to score on six straight possessions.Their lowest-scoring quarter in the first 12 minutes mushroomed into their lowest-scoring half.They were losing by 24.“We’re giving teams the game plan,” Hart explained after the 129-114 defeat.It wasn’t the first time Hart voiced this concern.

For all the scoring juice the Knicks have squeezed out this season, they’ve demonstrated a fairly consistent weakness to “teams that switch, teams that junk the game up,” said Hart, noting that the Rockets and Celtics also punished the Knicks with this strategy.He predicted the Hornets, who the Knicks face on Black Friday afternoon, will do the same under rookie head coach Charles Lee, a former Celtics assistant.Hart, in turn, offered two solutions: Either use himself more often in the pick-and-rolls, which would alter the rotations and defenders who switch on the screener; or, more simply, attack the switches with more pac...