Since New Year’s Eve, the Knicks have been a mess.
For three weeks, a team that started the season 23-9 with strong victories and an NBA Cup, but also suffered defeats that could be explained by injuries, has gone on an inexplicable 2-8 streak, the worst 10-game stretch since David Fizdale was roaming the sideline.
The No. 1 reason for the team’s struggles is the defense; there’s no denying that. They have the worst defensive rating in basketball in January and, aside from Saturday’s loss to Phoenix, have struggled mightily at stopping anyone (including a hapless Kings team) from scoring.
But a reason that nobody is talking about is an issue that, while accentuated by the recent absence of Jalen Brunson, has been going on for a while.
An offense that looked unstoppable at times in the first 30 games has gone ice-cold.
Despite welcoming Deuce McBride and Landry Shamet from extended ailments, the Knicks are 22nd in offensive rating in January after being second through the New Year’s Eve defeat in San Antonio. The offensive rating has dropped 10 whole points in that span. What’s behind this?
FG%: 47.8% (9th) to 43.7% (29th)
3PT%: 38.6% (4th) to 34.1% (24th)
TS%: 59.8% (T-5th) to 54.8% (T-27th)
AST/TO: 2.03 (6th) to 1.69 (25th)
It’s not the rebounding, which has actually improved in this stretch. The two big factors are not taking care of the ball and not making shots. Now, is this about underperformance or opponents’ adjustments?
Open/Wide Open 3pt% first 33 games:
39.6% (34.0 att/g)
Open/Wide Open 3pt% last 9 games:
33.7% (31.4 att/g)
There are fewer attempts, so the team isn’t getting quite as many good looks, but the big gap is the percentage. 39.4% is elite, 33.7% is terrible. Six percentage points might not mean much in the grand scheme of things, but when the team is encountering such offensive struggles, it adds up.
Let’s go game-by-game. The Knicks had some issues in the New Year’s Eve game in San Antonio in the second half, but they lost that game solely because they couldn’t guard Julian Champagnie, so we start in Madison Square Garden against the Hawks.
The Knicks were down 33-30 against the Hawks through one quarter, but slowly let the game slip away after that.
Part of that was scoring just 17 points in the second quarter while shooting a brutal 6-for-19 from the field and 2-for-12 from three. They shot just 37% as a team that day and went 9-for-41 from deep, giving them no chance whatsoever against a Hawks team that out-physical’d them all night long.
The offense wasn’t the issue the next night against the Sixers, but it reared its ugly head again two nights later in Detroit.
The Knicks trailed by one after one quarter (30-29) and shot well from the field in the second despite nine turnovers, causing the Pistons to pull away. What came in the second half, however, was a mockery of Knicks basketball.
5-for-22 in the third quarter. 15 points. 37 points in the entire second half. All while Cade Cunningham blitzed them on the other end of the floor.
Beating the Clippers two days after helped steady the ship ahead of a four-game West Coast swing, but the Knicks went cold again late in the January 9th game in Phoenix. What was odd about this one was the shockingly poor clutch performance by the reigning Clutch Player of the Year.
After tying the game at 101 with 3:04 left, the Knicks scored two points in the next 2:58.
The next four possessions:
Brunson missed floater
Brunson turnover
McBride 2-pointer
Brunson turnover
Despite a solid game, Jalen Brunson went 1-for-6 with two turnovers in the fourth quarter, and the team’s reliance on their captain torpedoed the game. All of this might not have been necessary if the Knicks hadn’t allowed a 14-0 run late in the third quarter, where they didn’t score a single point for over five minutes.
After a win over the Blazers, things really fell apart. Brunson was injured in the first quarter against the Kings in Sacramento, and the Knicks responded by starting 1-for-20 from three and managing just 32 points through 21 minutes. Despite dominating the possession battle and playing good spurts of defense, they shot 39% from the field and 19.5% from deep all game.
The Knicks started the game in Golden State red hot, starting 6-for-7 from deep. They then missed 13 of their next 14. Against the Suns at MSG, the Knicks had a stretch of three and five minutes without scoring and another five-minute stretch without making a shot.
It’s just untenable for a team that isn’t built to win slugfests. Even without Brunson, the Knicks have a bevy of shooting talent and several players capable of making shots. Jordan Clarkson has struggled of late and the Knicks continue to get inconsistent performances out of Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges, and OG Anunoby, but there’s just no reason for this.
All of this should come to pass at some point. There was an offensive regression last year with similar personnel, but that was primarily predicated on Tom Thibodeau’s overreliance on one lineup that was figured out due to Josh Hart’s three-point struggles. This one doesn’t make sense.
There’s a time and a place for film study, but a general feeling is a regression in the offensive process over the course of the season. Mike Brown talked a lot early in the season about “sprays”, which is when a ballhandler gets one foot in the paint and kicks to an open shooter. This isn’t a concrete stat, but the Knicks have visually just not done this as much lately.
When players drive as of late, they’re shooting regardless of how the defense collapses. The difference between that and the opponent is that when the Knicks’ defense collapses on a drive, there’s always a pass. Ball movement is the key to good offensive process, and if the Knicks re-establish the process that vaulted them to a 23-9 start, they’ll get back on track.
