Knicks News: Immanuel Quickley is finding his groove

The Knicks came away with what felt like a must-win game against a depleted, albeit first place 76ers team on Monday night.

It was another up-and-down night where the Knicks got out to a nineteen-point lead but allowed the 76ers to get within one point. At the end of the day, a win is a win. One of the bright spots of the game was the play of sophomore guard Immanuel Quickley.

Knicks’ Immanuel Quickley getting back on track

It was a rough start to the season for Immanuel Quickley. The “sophomore slump” has been very real for Quickley, who came into the season with high expectations.

In the first 10 games of the season, Quickley shot just 31.3% from the field and 25% from 3. He has had a really difficult time scoring, and when you watched the games, it was difficult to figure out why.

It didn’t seem like there was anything inherently off with Quickley’s game — he was getting to his usual spots, creating space, and trying to play his sparkplug role, but the shots were not falling.

Sometimes we tend to overanalyze players’ woes during a stretch of the season but for Quickley it was quite clear: he was in a funk.

It happens.

Players go through cold streaks and it can be particularly alarming for a young player to start a season off on the wrong foot. It seems like he’s starting to get his mojo back.

In his past three games, Quickley has provided 31 points and 9 assists in about 53 minutes of action. He’s shot 6 of 11 from three.

His efficiency is back, and the shots are starting to fall. He was a key part of the Knicks win in Philly last night.

He’s still the same lightning-fast player he was last season. Flying all over the court — quick handoffs, fake handoffs, rip throughs, stepbacks, floaters — he’s so hard to track for defenses when he’s creating the space he needs to get his shots off.

Knicks fans got to see Quickley show off his point guard skills in a more prominent role this summer and were hoping to see a little more of it this season.

We know that he’s still going to be a role player with both Derrick Rose and Kemba Walker on the roster, but I do have to say, he’s earned more playing time.

It always seems like Alec Burks is the punching bag of playing time cries from fans because, well, he’s an older role player. Fans always want to see young guys get a shot.

Still, I believe there is genuinely something about Quickley’s play as a point guard that the Knicks could use in certain stretches of games.

I wrote about it this offseason: How I expected one of Quickley’s added roles to be the team’s 3rd point guard or “emergency point guard” and yet, we have still seen Alec Burks take over that role. Burks maintained that role last season as well, but it feels like Quickley is more effective at running the offense.

Quickley’s microwave-scoring and playmaking can help the Knicks get back to life in important stretches of any given game.

Now that he’s seemingly turned a corner in his sophomore season, I’d expect some even bigger performances in the near future.