Knicks: An early evaluation of the offensive play types

What play types have the New York Knicks been using so far this season?

We are only three games into the 2020-21 season and the New York Knicks have already surprised us in the win column.

After losing the first two games before playing Milwaukee on the second night of a back-to-back, looking ahead toward a road-heavy schedule, it seemed like Tom Thibodeau’s first victory coaching the blue and orange wouldn’t happen for a while. But the Knicks somehow beat the Bucks by twenty points on Sunday, and here we are.

New York starts a four-game road trip against Cleveland on Tuesday night, which will take them to Tampa (vs Toronto), Indiana, and Atlanta. We will quickly learn how much their impressive win against one of the NBA’s best teams carries over into the season.

While it is only three games, I thought it would be interesting to look at the Synergy tracking data to get an idea of how the offense has found its points.

The Knicks’ offensive rating ranks 13th in the NBA so far, bolstered by a surprisingly efficient three-point shooting percentage that ranks second best in the league. New York shot 12-28 from downtown on opening night, had a dreadful performance in their home opener (8-29), and then with the help of unexpected heroes Elfrid Payton and Frank Ntilikina, they connected on 16 of 27 of their three-point attempts vs Milwaukee.

That excellent perimeter shooting has helped them rank 2nd in spot-up shooting, which is their most frequent play type, according to Synergy. Over 24% of their offensive plays have resulted in spot-up opportunities.

Behind spot-ups, the Knicks have generated offense out of the pick-and-roll 20% of the time. They are around league average in this category (0.924 points per possession), with RJ Barrett bringing their efficiency down a bit, as he has struggled against defensive adjustments where opponents trap the ball-handler.

New York could use some improvement in transition. According to Cleaning the Glass, they rank 30th in transition frequency and 29th in points added per 100 possessions in fastbreak plays. They have particularly struggled turning steals into points.

Perhaps most surprising, they haven’t generated much offense for the pick-and-roll man. With Mitchell Robinson and Nerlens Noel in the rotation, fans probably expected this to be an area of strength from the start, but the Knicks rank 21st in efficiency in plays ending with the roll man attempting a shot, and they haven’t been able to create as many of these opportunities as one might have expected over the first three games.

It’s an extremely small sample of data, but interesting to review some early trends as we learn more about this Thibodeau-coached team in the weeks ahead.