Just How Bad Are The Knicks On Offense This Season?
By William Lee
On March 18, 2014 New York officially announced Phil Jackson to be the President of the Organization. Jackson made it known that he would be installing the principles of the triangle offense. To no one’s surprise Jackson hired a disciple of his in Derek Fisher, whom has been coached under his triangle offense. The offensive principles that have won Jackson eleven NBA Championships as a head coach.
This all sounded great in the summer but we are now half-way through the regular season and New York has the worst record in the League at 5-36. The Knicks try to run the triangle offense but are failing at it epically. Let’s take a look inside the numbers at the Knick’s ineptitude on offense. All stats are courtesy of NBA.com as of January 16, 2015.
New York is the second worst team in the League at scoring with 92.5 points per game, second only to Philadelphia who score 90.4 points per game. The Knicks are inefficient, scoring at the bottom third of the League (10th worst) with a clip of 44%.
No one is able to create scoring opportunities, be it for himself or his teammates. This is true with or without Carmelo Anthony in the lineup, but is more evident without their superstar player. More often than not the ball is just being passed around the perimeter with the ball not going anywhere. The ball movement has no purpose, it is passing just for the sake of passing. To illustrate this point, New York ranks second in made passes per game at 358.2, yet are below the League average in assist made per game. The Knicks hand out 21.1 assist per game compared to the League average of 21.98 assist per game.
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Further illustrating the point that New York passes does not lead to easy scoring opportunities (again passing for the sake of passing), when you just pass the ball around the perimeter for most of the shot clock and end up taking a 20 foot jump shot. This is not very productive, yet far too often does this occur in the Knick’s offense. New York is 12th in assist opportunities per game (45.2), which is defined by NBA.com as: passes by a player to a teammate in which the teammate attempts a shot, and if made, would be an assist. Given that New York are in the top half of assist opportunities in the League, you would think that the Knicks can do better than being ranked bottom third (10th worst) in the League at 49 points created by an assist per game.
The most damning evidence that New York are not able to create easy scoring opportunities is the fact that they are dead last in drives per game at 7.6, when the League average is more than doubled that at 15.58 drives per game. You cannot create easy opportunities when you cannot break down the defense, whether you drive to score, or drive to kick the ball back out. Driving the ball is key to an efficient offense, see the Dallas Mavericks, who rank second in drives per game (33), correlating to second in points scored per game (108.5).
Worst yet, even when New York does get into the paint, they are the third worst at finishing their drives, completing the play only 40.2% of the time. The League average is 45.22%, a full five percentage points below the average. Going hand in hand with the lack of drives to the rim, the Knicks are dead last in free throws made (13.6) and free throws attempted (17.6). The 17.6 number for New York free throws attempted per game hover around the League average for free throws made per game (17.47).
The League is trending towards drives and kicks, and three-point shooting, spearheading this movement is the Houston Rockets. Kirk Goldsberry of Grantland puts it best when describing the Rockets. “By now, everyone knows that the Rockets’ offensive philosophy is built around 3s and paint shots; they avoid the midrange the same way Gwyneth Paltrow avoids Quiznos.”
New York on the contrary are doing the opposite, making (13.4) and attempting (23.1) the least amount of shots within five feet of the basket. As well as being last in field goals made between 5-9 ft. (2.2), and attempting the second least amount of shots in between 5-9 ft. (6.1).
Instead because of the triangle offense the Knicks are attempting most of their shots around the elbow area, New York has by far the most elbow touches (34.2) per game in the League, which is defined by NBA.com as: touches that originate within the 5 foot radius nearing the edge of the lane and free throw line, inside the 3-point line. The second most is the Memphis Grizzlies with 27.3 elbow touches per game, only they have a great high-low offensive post game with Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph (so they have a reason for this…unlike the Knicks).
New York makes the ninth most shots between 10-14 ft. (2.9), but attempts the sixth most in this area with 7.8 per game. While taking so many shots from this location, the Knicks are not very efficient. New York ranks 12th worst in the League at 37.5%, with the League average being 39.43% from between 10-14 ft.
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Just watching the games and going by the eye test, I noticed that the Knicks were being pushed further and further out with their shot selections coming out of the triangle offense. Shots use to come from the mid-range, now opponents are forcing the Knicks to take shots closer to just below three-point line, which is the least efficient and desirable shot. Currently New York is taking the fourth most attempts from 15-19 ft.(17.1), while making the third most (7.4). Now the Knicks are the seventh most efficient in this area of the floor at 43.3%, but no matter how efficient you are, do you really want to be taking so many inefficient shots?
New York is making (6) and taking (16.4) the seventh most shots from between 20-24 ft. at an inefficient rate of 36.5%, which is 12th worst in the League. These stats include both the two-pointers and three-pointers since the NBA three-point line ranges from 22 ft. away from the hoop on the corners and 23.75 ft. away at the top of the key. With the Knicks attempting the tenth fewest three-pointers in the NBA, we can logically conclude that most of the 20-24 ft. attempts are long two-pointers, which is the worst shot in basketball.
Statistics are not the be-all end-all but they do help analyze basketball. Statistics help you validate a point that the eye test is showing you and you have to be blind to not see that the 2014-2015 New York Knicks are godawful. Still it was eye opening just how awful the Knicks were…being bottom in the League in nearly every offensive statistical category.