NEW YORK – The New York Knicks scored 119 points and shot efficiently – 50% from the field and 40% from the 3-point stripe. They even managed to reach the finish line eleven times more often than the Detroit Pistons.

But in the end, none of it was enough as the Knicks lost 124-119 to the red-hot Pistons at Madison Square Garden on Monday night.

The game, which marked the halfway point of the regular season for New York, was the type of contest the Knicks typically won in years past. However, they failed to stop the ball late and allowed two shots in a row on identical plays, both of which led to wide-open corner shots from Detroit’s Malik Beasley in the closing moments.

“We lose games, I think we shouldn’t lose,” winger Josh Hart said in the locker room after the loss. “We need to start figuring it out. We’re halfway there. We can’t change anything about the first half now. But if we want to be the team we want to be at the end of the season, then we have to start correcting things now.

Hart’s comments make it seem as if the third-place Knicks are well below expectations at 26-15. But it’s actually the best mark they’ve had at this point in a season under coach Tom Thibodeau. Last season they were 24-17. In the 2022-23 season, the Knicks were 22-19, and in the 2021-22 season, the Knicks were 20-21. So you can argue that this is progress.

Thibodeau himself said Monday after the loss that significant progress had been made since the team’s slow start. The club started really well in December, winning nine in a row at one point and has one of the league’s most dangerous scoring duos in Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns.

But in some ways, that’s what’s remarkable: The identity of the team — once perhaps the NBA’s most physical and powerful unit — is now often reflected in shootouts like Monday’s loss. And the Knicks, who rank second in offense but just 15th in defense, sometimes can’t get enough stops to close the deal. It’s an unusual problem for a team coached by Thibodeau.

Pistons star Cade Cunningham, who had just seven points in the first half after a foul trouble, scored 29 points in the second half. He had 18 points in the third period alone. Because of this, New York aggressively tried to catch him twice in the closing moments, only for Cunningham to pass the ball to Tim Hardaway Jr., who then found an open Beasley on back-to-play mode. Back possession to end the game.

Yes, it was just a single contest against a resurgent Pistons unit that has won 10 of 12, no less. And it was the second end of a meeting for the Knicks, who had picked apart the Bucks a night earlier. But it’s abundantly clear what effort New York will have to make as the second half of the year begins.

“Defensively we have to get better,” Hart said. “We just have to get better at that.”