All is not lost: Porzingis, Ntilikina, and a Knicks future to believe in

It's been evident since he first suited up for the New York Knicks that Kristaps Porzingis has the potential to be a generational talent, and the franchise's greatest homegrown player since Patrick Ewing. But the question has been whether the Knicks would be able to assemble a functional team around him, or if they'd bungle the job in true Knicksian fashion. And hoo boy, they came close to bungling it.

They didn't, though (at least not yet), and now there are signs the team is building something sustainable. Carmelo Anthony was never a natural fit alongside Porzingis, and his ball-stopping proclivities took valuable touches away from the budding phenom. Now, as the Knicks' unquestioned alpha, Porzingis is blowing up. He's shooting the lights out, moving faster than his 7-foot-3 frame has any right to move, averaging over 30 points a night, scoring an absurd 1.38 points per possession as a roll man, and generating more points from the elbow than anyone in the NBA.

Individually, Porzingis has clearly made a leap this season. But Sunday's thrilling comeback win over the Indiana Pacers hinted at another important aspect of his development, and that of the Knicks as a whole: a worthy sidekick. In rookie point guard Frank Ntilikina, Porzingis has a potentially perfect complement; a smothering defender, crafty ball-handler, and heady pick-and-roll passer with whom he's already seemingly developed a crackling synergy. In the 45 minutes the two have shared the floor, the Knicks are a plus-32. And they did their most ruthless work against the Pacers, turning a 19-point deficit into a seven-point win in the span of about 13 minutes.

It started at the defensive end. During that span, Ntilikina had two steals and three deflections, hounded Cory Joseph and Victor Oladipo into contested long twos, neutralized Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis on switches, and made a herculean closeout to contest a Bojan Bogdanovic corner three. In that same period, Porzingis tracked Joseph on a switch and swatted his layup attempt from behind, stoned Oladipo at the rim, torpedoed a Sabonis-Thaddeus Young dribble handoff, and slid over from the weak side on an Oladipo-Sabonis pick-and-roll to draw a charge.

Ntilikina's active, long-armed defense has stood out early in his career - pick-and-roll ball-handlers have scored a microscopic 0.52 points per possession against him, and he's tops in the league in both steals and deflections per 36 minutes - while Porzingis has looked re-energized at that end. But their offensive mind-meld was no less impressive Sunday, as they methodically erased the Pacers lead with surgical two-man actions.

After Porzingis checked into the game with just under two minutes left in the third quarter, he immediately went on a personal 9-0 run, and scored 15 straight Knicks points in all, with Ntilikina assisting on five of his six buckets during that stretch. Porzingis torched anyone who tried to guard him, but what he and Ntilikina did to poor Darren Collison and Thad Young was cruel and unusual.

On the first possession in the fourth quarter, they took advantage of Young's inattention with a pick-and-pop that quickly turned into a backdoor cut. It started out as a side pick-and-roll, but when Porzingis popped, Young watched the ball a split second too long, and Porzingis took off toward the basket while Young was still recovering out to the 3-point line.

Ntilikina hit him in stride for a driving dunk.

Having already burned the Pacers multiple times with pick-and-pops, Ntilikina later leveraged the threat of that action to stay a step ahead of the defense. Porzingis came up to screen for him, but Ntilikina turned on the jets before the screen arrived, catching Collison and Young - who'd started cheating a bit in anticipation - off guard. He beat Collison cleanly off the bounce, and put Young on his heels.

Porzingis changed course and veered back toward the basket. Ntilikina waited a beat for him to pick up some steam before hitting him with a well-timed pass for an and-one layup.

Ntilikina made another impressive on-the-fly read shortly thereafter, when he pushed the ball up the floor off a Pacers miss and went immediately into a high-screen action with Enes Kanter, as Porzingis came up behind as the trailer.

Kanter rolled, and Porzingis flared toward the right wing as Young and Joseph made the curious decision to trap. Ntilikina was ready for it, taking one dribble away from the trap before spinning and firing a pass to an open Porzingis.

Young's desperate closeout resulted in a three-shot foul.

That's some seriously calm, patient, and intuitive decision-making for a 19-year-old point guard. And after watching the Knicks slog through the triangle offense for three-plus years, it was nice to see them thrive by keeping things relatively simple.

As defenses scout the Ntilikina-Porzingis pick-and-roll, the rookie's ability to keep them honest with his jumper will be crucial to his effectiveness playing off Porzingis, and to that effect, two late possessions Sunday were particularly heartening. On the first, Porzingis drew a triple team after disguising the direction of his screen and then getting a quick pocket pass from Ntilikina.

He pitched it back out to Ntilikina for a clean 3-point look. It missed the mark, but two possessions later, with the score tied and Porzingis sitting on a career-high 40 points, Ntilikina spotted up in the exact same spot, and Porzingis trusted him to make good. He passed out of a double team from the top of the circle, and Ntilikina canned what would prove to be the game-winning three.

So, caveats: one game does not a successful rebuild make. The Pacers defense is bad, and things obviously won't be like this every night. The Knicks are still the Knicks. Their roster is still extremely flawed, and littered with bloated contracts that could hamstring them moving forward. They may not be bad - they're now 5-1 since an 0-3 start - but they probably aren't good just yet. (It's worth remembering they started last season 14-10 before going 17-41 the rest of the way, and started 22-22 the year prior before finishing out 10-28.)

But even if this does wind up being another early-season mirage, Sunday felt different. It felt like we were seeing two young building blocks who actually make sense together. For one night at least, the Knicks' future wasn't purely wishful or speculative. It looked real. And fun as hell.