New York Knicks: 3 Discoveries from first 3 games of season
By James Ryder
The New York Knicks Have Embraced 3-Point Shooting
As I had mentioned earlier, the Knicks were one of the best 3- point shooting teams last season in terms of percentage. New York shot 39.2 from beyond the arc on 30 attempts per game.
Immanuel Quickley shot 39%, RJ Barrett shot 40%, and Julius Randle, Derrick Rose, Reggie Bullock, and Alec Burks all shot 41%. That’s all very good, but it was something that didn’t help the team’s offense all that much.
In the league today, 3-point shooting is incredibly important and volume is just as relevant as efficiency. Everyone knows 3 > 2, and for a team like New York that scored very few points on most nights, attempting more three’s will allow that final number to rise if the efficiency remains.
In back-to-back games, we saw the best and worst-case scenario for how embracing the long ball will affect the Knicks. In both of their games against the Orlando Magic, the New York Knicks shot a ton of threes and it was the main factor in their game-1 success and their game-2 shortcomings.
In the first game against the Magic, New York shot a fantastic 44.4% from downtown. They launched 54 3-pointers and canned a franchise record 24 of them. This fueled their offense as they pummeled the Magic. The Knicks led by as many as 34 points in their 121-96 victory.
Then, in Game 3, it was a totally different story. Aside from the lackluster defense, we were unaccustomed to seeing, New York went ice cold from the field and particularly when it came to their perimeter shooting. They finished just 13-for-48 (27%) from three as they allowed the Magic to come back and win 110-104 at Madison Square Garden.
Besides Kemba Walker (4-8 from the field) and Mitchell Robinson (4-5), the only “Knick with the Knack” was Derrick Rose, who poured in 22 points (9-16) and shot a brilliant 5-8 from three.
As all teams do nowadays, the Knicks look like they will be living and dying by the 3-ball this season. It is a necessary evil. What went wrong in the second game was they were settling for taking the shots instead of getting them in the flow of the offense. It is one thing to miss your shots, but it is another to willingly take them for granted.
If the Knicks want to have success on offense this season, they will need to find the happy medium between taking a ton of threes in order to keep up with modern standards while finding ways for those shots to be smart and worthwhile.