New York Knicks: 3 takeaways from preseason loss against Houston Rockets

2. Enes Kanter is not much of a defender

This game showed us a bit more of Enes Kanter’s game with 25 minutes played. He showed up on offense as he has shown he is capable so far, but when matched with a center with just average scoring ability, he failed to stand his ground.

Last season, Clint Capela averaged a career-high 12.6 points in 23.9 minutes per game. In this matchup, he scored 19 points in 25 minutes on 7-of-11 shooting while grabbing nine rebounds.

Kanter finished 6-for-13 with eight rebounds, and often looked like he was forcing the issue trying to manhandle the Rockets on his own in the paint. Overall Kanter is not bad, but certainly not the defender Willy Hernangomez has so far proven to be. The Knicks certainly did not improve defensively by picking up Kanter or Doug McDermott, who had the worst defensive box plus/minus in the entire league last year.

Kyle O’ Quinn is producing, but not producing anything eye-opening that sticks out for him to be credited with a starter role for New York. With that being said, hopefully we can say with an almost certainty Hernangomez will be named the starter at center.