Cold Hard Truth About Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns Duo
On paper, Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns are a dream pairing. In their first season together, both became All-Stars and earned All-NBA honors — proof of their elite offensive skill set. But as The Ringer’s Howard Beck recently pointed out, there’s one glaring flaw that could cap the Knicks’ championship ceiling: defense.
Speaking on The Ringer NBA Show with Michael Pina, Beck compared the Brunson–Towns tandem to Steve Nash and Amar’e Stoudemire on the “7 Seconds or Less” Phoenix Suns.
“It felt like there was always a ceiling on how far the Suns could go because of defense… Your two best players [Nash and Stoudemire] are basically all offense, no D.”
Two Stars, Same Weakness
Beck admits the comparison isn’t perfect, but the core issue stands. Both Brunson and Towns are defensive liabilities — though for different reasons.
- Jalen Brunson: An undersized guard who thrives offensively on footwork and shot-making. Defensively, even when he stays in front of his man, taller players can simply shoot over him.
- Karl-Anthony Towns: Long criticized for defensive lapses and struggles executing complex schemes. Under Tom Thibodeau, those weaknesses were still evident — one reason Minnesota traded for Rudy Gobert.
To Towns’ credit, he’s an elite defensive rebounder, which sometimes boosts his overall defensive metrics to “average” in analytics models. But the lapses are still there.
You Can Hide One, But Not Two
In today’s NBA, offenses are relentless at exploiting the weakest link — and hiding one bad defender is already a challenge. Hiding two is almost impossible.
The Knicks’ front office has tried to counter this by surrounding Brunson and Towns with high-level defenders:
- OG Anunoby and Mitchell Robinson – elite stoppers.
- Mikal Bridges and Miles McBride – strong, versatile defenders.
The idea is to insulate the star duo as much as possible. And in the regular season, it might work. But the postseason is a different animal, where matchups tighten, scouting sharpens, and every defensive weakness gets magnified.
The Playoff Question
The Knicks have the defensive pieces to mask their stars — but not erase the problem entirely. In the end, New York’s title hopes may hinge on whether Brunson and Towns can raise their defensive floor when it matters most. If they can’t, history says there’s a hard cap on just how far they can go.
