No one expects this Knicks team to suddenly adopt the style of the 1994 Knicks, a team that made it all the way to Game 7 of the NBA Finals, and ready for the playoffs by shaving their heads and tossing their sneaker colorways aside for a more intimidating and unified black sneaker identity.

Honestly, while Charles Oakley, Anthony Mason and others might have looked the part back then, the two members of that team that still are constants around the Garden, Patrick Ewing and John Starks, opted for the sneakers, but kept their hair intact and resisted the razor.

But that team didn’t need a look to impose it’s will on teams. Any player who ventured toward the rim risked being knocked into the stands by Oakley or Mason. And in that lesson, at least in theory and updated to the 2026 style of play, the current Knicks can find some sort of map to what has provided success for them on the defensive end of the floor.

After spending the first 40 games of the season listening to critics point out the inability to forget a defense on a team that includes Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns as the offensive stars and All-Stars, the Knicks turned their defense around. Even as they finished off a five-game road trip Friday night that included some troubling performances, the Knicks boast the best defensive rating in the NBA since January 21.

In 25 games the Knicks have posted a 104.7 defensive rating according to NBA.com and no one is really even close. The Boston Celtics are second at 108.1. The Knicks have also put together the NBA’s best net rating in that span at 12.3 (ahead of San Antonio at 11.1, who, until losing Friday night to Denver, had suffered just one loss in a 16-game span — to the Knicks).

And if it may not seem like it without the shaved heads and still sporting colorful sneakers, physicality is what the Knicks point to as the difference.

“I think a lot of it is we’re playing more physical, being more aggressive defensively, and dictating the offense and not letting the offense dictate what they want to do,” Josh Hart said. “It’s something that we’ve got to continue to do, something that we’re taking pride in. We know that when we do that we’re getting stops, we’re able to play fast, play our brand of basketball. It’s a mindset that we all really dug in more defensively and that’s the benefit of it.”

“I understood our struggle when we were going through it,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said during this latest road trip. “And it wasn’t just them, it was me too. And I knew I needed to continue taking our lumps to figure it out. I needed to work at it, they needed to work at it, and it wasn’t just going to happen. And we had to make adjustments here, adjustments there, and all our [players] stayed with it. They just believed and it’s starting to show now.

"When I took this job, I just looked at the roster and I was like, whoa, we got some length. We got guys that can play physical, we got some versatility. It’s all there for a good defensive team makeup. So it’s starting to show with the work that we put in while believing and staying connected.”

The Knicks built the roster with defense in mind when they traded for OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges, but as good as Anunoby can be on that end (and Bridges sometimes lapses from a physical standpoint) much of the turnaround has come at center where Towns has been much improved as the season has worn.  Mitchell Robinson’s healthy contributions have been a major difference from last season when he sat much of the season.

“I mean, at the end of the day we’re working to be the best team we can be every single day,” Brunson said. “From the moment we started training camp we were just tapping away, tapping away, and at some point you just, everything is going to fall into place. As long as we keep believing and continue to work you just never know when things are going to turn for us.”

Will anyone score 100 again?

Whatever you think of Bam Adebayo’s 83-point night it did raise the question of, if a player not known for scoring could ascend to the second-highest scoring night in NBA history,  who, if they set their sights on it and faced a possible tanking team, could challenge Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point night that set the standard back in 1962?

We put up a poll on X.com and fans voted for Luka Doncic. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander would seem like a possibility, not just for his ability to score — having just topped Wilt’s record of consecutive games of at least 20 points — but also his skill at getting to the line.

I’d rank them this way — not just for scoring ability, but also a desire to make history.

1. Luka Doncic — He can score from anywhere and is unstoppable some nights and already has put up 73 in a game, which was the best by an active player until this week.

2. LeBron James — sounds odd, but remember Kobe Bryant’s last game when he went for it and scored 60 while attempting 50 shots? LeBron has just about every other historical mark and could, for one night, chase it.

3. Steph Curry — Same as LeBron, with the caveat that when he gets hot he’s still the best shooter I’ve ever seen.

As far as Knicks: Towns already has a 62-point game and Brunson has put up 61. But neither seems inclined to chase numbers. Brunson faced Indiana Friday with the same set of circumstances that Miami coach Erik Spoelstra used to explain away Adebayo shooting 43 times from the field (22 from three-point range) and 43 free throws. Spoelstra had players sidelined, facing a tanking team and needing his captain locked in from the start.

Well, Brunson took the floor in Indiana without Towns or Hart, facing an Indiana team which has the NBA’s worst record and had already lost 11 straight, and he put up 25 points in the first half. He took eight shots in the second half and finished with 29 points.

By Steve Popper

steve.popper@newsday.com@StevePopper

Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.