NY Knicks Lineup: How will the team handle Derrick Rose and Kemba Walker?
By Adam Kester
NY Knicks: Will Derrick Rose and Kemba Walker share the floor?
There will absolutely be situations in which Rose and Walker share the court for a few minutes – dual point guard lineups can bring a lot to your offense.
However… How often will happen? Even more importantly, are they both going to be on the court together in crunchtime?
Once Kemba Walker finally put his name in ink on a contract, I started to daydream of Kemba hitting a stepback game-winner at Madison Square Garden, he jumps on the scorer’s table and points to the “New York” on his chest.
I do wonder how many opportunities he will have to take those shots.
You could make a strong argument as to why Derrick Rose and Kemba Walker are the 2nd and 3rd best players on the NY Knicks. It’s really Randle as the Batman with 4 Robins in Walker, Rose, Barrett, and Fournier.
Rose was a big part of New York’s end-of-game rotation. Now they add “Cardiac” Kemba Walker into the mix, and it makes you wonder what the approach will be in close games.
Let’s say Rose and Walker are both in the NY Knicks’ hypothetical closing lineup. That would likely mean that one of Barrett or Fournier would be on the bench. Unless… Tom Thibodeau goes with some sort of stretch lineup where he sticks Randle at center, and either Fournier or Barrett at the stretch-4?
It’s a fun lineup in theory, but I don’t see Thibodeau going that far. That’s a lineup that gives up a lot on defense.
That’s actually something you could probably say about a lineup with Walker and Rose — they could really struggle defensively Rose is, at best, a neutral impact defender. Kemba is not.
Maybe with Tom Thibodeau’s scheme, they can both hide their defensive flaws, and their offensive talents will be enough to be a net positive, but we saw just how difficult it was for this team to guard point guards in the Knicks series with the Hawks where they had no answer for Trae Young.
What do you think are some reasonable stat predictions for Kemba Walker and Derrick Rose? Who do you think will be on the floor in crunch time?
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