These are not the Knicks we thought they were!
Pretty much every team and every player has a narrative. And often, they are rooted in some truth. One major problem with said narratives, though, is that they take too long to grow out of, and that’s if you’re lucky enough to grow out of them at all. The 24-25 Knicks came into the season with narratives of their own. And as the season progressed, they developed some new ones as well. Luckily for Knicks fans, this current team has actually been able to debunk a few of those labels and statements.
They can’t beat good teams.
This was a very real and fair assessment of the Knicks early on. On opening night, they got embarrassed by the defending champion Celtics by 23, lost to the Cavaliers by six a few days later, and then suffered a 12-point loss to a good Rockets team a week later. Heading into their November 25th matchup against the Nuggets, they were 0-3 against the top teams in both conferences, and their only quality wins came against Pacers, Heat, Bucks, and Suns, who were all going through some clear struggles of their own.
They did go on to beat the Nuggets that night, adding to their list of impressive wins against good, but not elite, teams. But the fans’ worries about New York’s performances against the best of the best became even more real after the pair of losses they suffered against the Thunder.
With zero wins against the Cavaliers, Celtics, and Thunder, it was hard to rebut the claim that the Knicks couldn’t beat good teams. But the last week and a half have given fans hope while also disproving this narrative. While they still haven’t beaten the truly elite teams mentioned above, they reeled off wins against the second, third, and fourth seed in the Western Conference during that span. They started the impressive stretch with a dominant 37-point victory over the then 31-15 Grizzlies. Then they came away with a solid 10-point victory over the much-improved Nuggets. And then finished off their tough stretch with an impressive gritty win over a very good 32-16 Rockets team.
The notion is still that they can’t beat the top two seeds in the eastern conference, but New York will have an opportunity to debunk that when they play the Celtics twice and the Cavaliers once over a 15-day stretch that starts this Saturday. Regardless of how those games against the best teams in the conference go though, it’s clear that the Knicks no longer have trouble beating good teams. The question has become: can they beat the best?
Karl-Anthony Towns is soft.
I am ashamed to admit that I was guilty of believing Towns was soft. I watched a good amount of non-Knicks games, including Timberwolves games, and it’s not like he did anything that was actually soft. But I, like many, saw him being labeled as soft, and despite the lack of evidence proving it, so I kind of ran with it. But in his first season as a Knick, he’s proven that he is anything but soft. The emotional big man can sometimes come off as being soft-natured, given his love for his teammates and family, and the accusations of him changing his voice don’t necessarily help. But when on the court, Towns has been as physically and mentally tough as anybody on the team.
Despite being visibly shaken about being traded from the team that drafted him, Towns came in with the right attitude and was very mature and secure. He showed up to work, embraced his role, and had zero ego when acknowledging early on this was Jalen Brunson’s team. And on the court, it’s been more of the same. Outside of a few games, he’s played an incredibly physical brand of basketball, grabbing heavily contested rebounds on a nightly basis, and playing through a lot of contact on offense. That physical toughness has been even more on display as of late, as he has continued to play a significant role on this team despite having a bone chip in his right thumb.
Mikal Bridges is not a good basketball player.
Thankfully, I was not guilty of buying into this assessment. But there were quite a number of basketball fans who were. Now, Bridges did get off to a less-than-optimal start for the Knicks. Through his first 19 games as a Knick, Bridges averaged just 15.5PPG while shooting just 30.6% from three, and playing subpar defense. That lead to people calling thinking that he was washed, and would never remember how to shoot, or play defense.
But as the faithful believed, Bridges turned it around. Since December 1st, Bridges is averaging 19.8PPG while shooting 51.6% from the field and 39.1% from three, and is playing significantly better defense as well. The Knicks obviously go as Brunson and Towns do, and they’ll ultimately only go as far as those two take them. But unlike the first few weeks of the season, Bridges has made an argument for being the third-best player on this team, and he’s back to being a good basketball player.
Josh Hart can’t work with the starters.
When Donte DiVincenzo and Julius Randle, it was clear that the Knicks needed to decide on who they wanted to fill out the starting lineup along with Brunson, Bridges, Towns, and OG Anunoby. Many, including myself, liked the idea of having Deuce McBride in the starting lineup to have a five-man lineup that could shoot and space the floor. Those feelings were only strengthened when Hart himself claimed that he felt lost during the preseason. I never thought that Hart wouldn’t, or couldn’t, work with the starters like some fans thought. I just believed that McBride would’ve been the more ideal fit and that Hart, who had excelled as a sixth man before, would continue to relish that role.
Fast forward to February, and we now know that Hart being a starter has been an incredibly good decision. The veteran wing is having the best season of his career, averaging 14.3PPG, 9.7RPG, and 5.8APG, and even had a shot at being an All-Star reserve. As Hart, who has fully bought into his new role, has so often said, he’s been a servant to the others in the starting lineup. He’s doing everything he’s always done, but even better. Rebounding, defending, passing, and whatever else the team needs, he’s done.
New York can’t be a good passing team under Tom Thibodeau.
For pretty much the entirety of the Thibodeau era, the Knicks have been bad when it comes to assists. His offenses were often very heliocentric, centered around one, and at most, two players. This season though, things have changed a bit.
After consistently being in the bottom of the league in assists per game, they rank 10th this year. The revamped offense, which has featured replacing Randle with a more willing passer in Towns and an improved playmaker in Brunson, has done wonders. They may still have moments and stretches where they are too stagnant and isolation-dependent, but as a whole, this team’s ball movement and playmaking have been much better. A lot of that obviously falls on team construction and personnel, but Thibodeau deserves some credit, too.
This roster cannot win with offensive rebounds.
Over the last two seasons, the Knicks became known for their offensive rebound. So much that, it became one of, if not, the most dominant part of their offense. Between Mitchell Robinson, and Isaiah Hartenstein, they developed a knack for crashing the boards on offense and giving their subpar half court offense more chances.
With Hartenstein gone and Robinson out with an injury, there were real concerns that an undersized starting lineup would be able to even come close to replicating that kind of success on the offensive glass. And when the season started, it didn’t look too promising. After having an offensive rebounding rate of 31.8% (second in the league) in the 22-23 season and a league-leading offensive rebounding rate of 33.3% last season, the Knicks had an offensive rebounding percentage of 27% after five games, which was 22nd in the league. In November, they were slightly better, with a rate of 29.4%, but it still wasn’t what fans got used to seeing over the past two seasons.
Since January 1st though, the Knicks are third in offensive rebounding rate with a percentage of 34.1%. That’s higher than the last two seasons, and it’s helped them come away with some much needed victories. As the season has progressed, we’ve seen this team find ways to win gritty, physical, ugly games, and a lot of that is because of their return to dominating the offensive glass.
The minutes are too much.
Thibodeau, and “the starters are playing too many minutes”. Name a more iconic duo. It’s hard. And to start the season, it was a very real concern. From the beginning of the season until January 10th, the Knicks had three players, Bridges, Hart, and Anunoby, in the top 10 in minutes per game, with the first two leading the league.
Since then though, Thibodeau has changed up the substitution patterns, minutes distribution, and rotation a bit, and the minutes for the players have looked different. A lot of the starters still play big minutes, but it is a lot more reasonable now. Since January 12th, the Knicks have just one player, Hart, in the top 15 in MPG, and Bridges and Brunson rank 16th, and 17th. Thibodeau may play his starters a lot of minutes, but it is no longer as big of a concern as he’s started to trust his bench a bit more.
The Knicks can’t play fast.
The Knicks have long been a slow team. They don’t push the pace, are risk averse, and prefer to play a controlled, and very intentional offense in the half-court. That has led to many believing that the Knicks, given their roster, and coach, cannot play fast. Some of that is still true. New York currently ranks 24th in the league in pace and isn’t too far from beating the Celtics for 25th in the league. That being said, the Knicks are still 15th in the league in transition frequency and are first in the league in points per possession on transition opportunities. The Knicks may not play as fast as often as many would like, but when they do get out in transition, they are among the best in the league.