New York Knicks: Is Bing Bong the New Knickstape?!
By Mark Wessol
New York Knicks: Live and die by the 3
There’s always been a saying in the sport of basketball and that is “you live by the 3, you die by the 3”.
If you shoot three pointers at a high rate and knock them down at a high rate it will undoubtedly result in a lot of wins. But inevitably you will have games where your shots won’t fall and it will cost you losses.
This came to fruition in that 2012-2013 NBA season with the Knicks. At the time, the Knicks shattered the NBA record for most three pointers made in a season with 891. To give some context, the 2009-2010 Orlando Magic made 841, so yea the Knicks were chucking them up.
When they got to the second round of the playoffs, they ultimately fell short to the Indiana Pacers and part of it was that three point shooting. JR Smith to be specific struggled mightily shooting the ball. In the playoff series against the Pacers, Smith shot a total of 39 three point attempts, he made just 9…. Resulting in… 23%. Not great compared to his regular season average of 35.6%.
So far after just a few games, this current Knicks team looks to be on a similar path shooting and making a lot of three’s. As of right now they lead the NBA in the 3-pointers attempted and 3-pointers made per game.
In fact, while I am writing this, the Knicks have 6 players shooting above 33% from three, and 3 players shooting 45% or better. Small sample size, but woah.
We saw last year against the Hawks that scoring suddenly became extremely challenging when our normal offense was not working and we didn’t know how to adjust.
If this shooting habit continues and they get a high seed, great. But let’s hope shooting performances don’t fluctuate too much and become their only identity.