Knicks still searching for answers for defense struggles before Nikola Jokic test

DENVER — The Knicks’ mile-high defensive woes won’t get any easier Monday night, when they will face potential triple-crown winner Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets.

The three-time NBA MVP somehow might be having the best statistical season of his 10-year NBA career, ranking first in the league in rebounding (13.7 per game) and second in both scoring (30.3) and assists (11.1) per game through his team’s first 16 appearances.

All three of those numbers would represent career highs for Jokic, who missed three games earlier this month due to the birth of his son.

The six-time All-Star also is logging a career-best 38.1 minutes per game this season, second only to Knicks wing Mikal Bridges (38.3) through Saturday’s action.

Bridges actually was benched by Tom Thibodeau for the final 10:03 in Saturday’s loss in Utah, finishing with season lows in minutes (33), points (seven) and field-goal percentage (3-for-15).

Fellow newcomer Karl-Anthony Towns, who will draw the primary defensive assignment against Jokic, also had a rough game at both ends of the floor. Though KAT grabbed 16 rebounds against the Jazz, the starting center missed eight of nine 3-point attempts and finished the game with a whopping minus-34 defensive rating.

Thibodeau and the players who spoke with the media afterward — Bridges, Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson — lamented the team’s poor defensive effort instead of a rocky shooting night (39.0 percent overall) for their first loss in five games.

“I think we need to just get stops, and communicate to each other a little bit more,” said Bridges, who was benched down the stretch in favor of veteran reserve Cam Payne. “I think it’s tough, we ain’t the only team, but it’s just human nature sometimes when you miss shots and kind of let down a little bit, and your voice kind of goes away.

“So we just gotta get past that and still communicate with each other. We can’t miss and then let that mess up our defense. If we miss, that’s gotta turn us up even more at the other end. We just gotta be better at that.”

The 7-foot Towns certainly has to be better defensively against a player of Jokic’s caliber.

Thibodeau even acknowledged after Saturday’s game that he considered inserting backup Jericho Sims at center in the fourth quarter after he’d posted a plus-19 in nine minutes earlier in the game, including a portion of the 17-0 run in the third quarter that pulled the Knicks within two.

The Knicks clearly have sacrificed interior defense after the free-agent defection of Isaiah Hartenstein and the latest injury for Mitchell Robinson. The trade-off is that Towns, a four-time All-Star, leads the team in scoring (26.1 ppg) and rebounding (12.5) in 15 appearances.

Still, the Knicks (9-7) ranked 21st in the NBA through Saturday in defensive rating with 115.7 points allowed per 100 possessions, which Hart called “a recipe for disaster” Saturday night.

“We’re just not playing well enough,” said Hart, who was a team-worst minus-37 in Utah. “We’re not being physical enough. We’re not giving enough ball pressure, myself included.

“We’ve got to figure it out. We can’t just be an offensive team and that’s what we’ve been for the first [16] games. And when you have games like this where you’re not shooting well and not figuring it out offensively, it looks bad.”

The 29-year-old Jokic could become the first player in NBA history to lead the league in both assists and rebounds per game in the same season. Wilt Chamberlain led the league in total boards and assists in 1967-68, but he trailed Oscar Robertson in assists per game.