3 Reasons the New York Knicks are going to be just fine
By Adam Kester
New York Knicks: The starters can bounce back
It’s been frustrating, I know. The New York Knicks starting five has been really, really bad.
It is zero exaggeration to say that the team’s bench unit has played much better than their starters as of late. The bench’s plus/minus has been astronomically better than the starters across the board.
It’s not just a matter of matchups — in their last game, the bench played a large chunk of minutes against the Charlotte Hornets starters in the 4th quarter.
There are two things to dissect here.
The first is that the bench unit is playing unbelievable basketball. The 2nd is that the starters have been playing so poorly, so far removed from even their average level of basketball, that there is going to be some positive regression sooner rather than later.
Look at these stats from the New York Knicks starters in their last five games played:
- Julius Randle — 21.6 PPG — 42.5% FG
- RJ Barrett — 10.4 PPG —29.6% FG
- Evan Fournier — 8.2 PPG — 38.5% FG
- Kemba Walker — 9.0 PPG — 31.5% FG
- Mitchell Robinson — 5.8 PPG — 83.3% FG
It’s rough.
It’s almost as if everyone is feeding off of each other’s negative play. Everyone in the starting lineup seems hard-pressed to make something happen on offense.
This is a unit that is still learning to play with one another. Sometimes it’s clicked, sometimes is hasn’t.
I promise you this, Evan Fournier will not shoot 38%, RJ Barrett will not shoot 29%, and Kemba Walker will not shoot 31% on the season.
You have to have a short memory in the NBA. The Knicks aren’t going to light it up on offense every night but they’re not going to throw up bricks every night either.
The fact that they’ve only lost some of these games by a small margin has been a miracle considering how they’ve shot from the field.