The New York Knicks seem to be falling into similar habits that they have had since the days of Carmelo Anthony. The Knicks continue to do the same little things that cost them games despite coaching changes, roster changes, and a winning season.
Now every team, including the best teams, sometimes lose sight of the big picture and do little things that cost them wins, but the Knicks cannot do that.
The Knicks are known to be a grind-it-out basketball team. If you’re a team coached by Tom Thibodeau, you win because of the effort put in.
Last season for the Knicks, that worked beautifully. Nobody expected them to be a playoff team or Julius Randle to be on it much longer, let alone ending up on the All-NBA Second Team.
Last year, if the Knicks roster made these mistakes, they would not be 7-6 like they are to start this year. The roster has a larger talent this year than last, which is probably causing these lapses.
The Knicks have the personnel that if they make small mistakes, they can still believe they can win the game due to the offensive talent.
My biggest concern is this does not look like the team that would do anything to win a single game like they did last year. They played every game like it was the playoffs, and now there are times where they look like the less hungry team on the court.
Now it may be more difficult to still have that fire and desire, as the great Clyde Frazier might put it, as they are now a team coming off of having home-court advantage in the playoffs.
The teams that seem to want it more teams with something to prove, and the Knicks proved their case last year… until they didn’t. Losing 4-1 to a team you swept in the regular season when you have home-court advantage is a bad look.
It looks especially bad when you shoot the way that your all-star forward Julius Randle shot that game, even though I stand by that he was just exhausted from playing 37 minutes per game all year long in a compressed season.
To start this season, the Knicks have fallen into some pretty bad habits that look like they would not have flown last season. Is it the fact that the offense is better? Is it a confidence issue? Or is something else off? Regardless, here are three habits the New York Knicks have to avoid.
New York Knicks: Getting complacent on defense
The Knicks have looked lazy on defense all year, something I cannot believe I’m saying that about a Tom Thibodeau team.
If New York played defense like this last year, they would not have made the playoffs. Plain and simple.
The Knicks ran on defense last year. Being one of the worst offensive teams did not seem to matter due to their tough defense, and now that has completely flipped.
After signing Kemba Walker and Evan Fournier, while RJ Barrett seems to have made an offensive jump, the Knicks are now an average team on offense.
As mentioned by Adam Kester, the Knicks need to make a defensive adjustment ASAP.
One of the biggest issues is that the Knicks just seem like they rely on their offense to a point where they’ve lost that edge defensively.
Last year the Knicks seemed to contest every shot they could. Nobody was allowed to shoot an open shot, regardless of their ability to shoot.
In the 2020-21 season, RJ Barrett contested the most three-point attempts in the NBA with 306. Barrett is still in the top 15 this year, but it goes to show that the team seems more complacent on the defensive end.
It would be understandable why the Knicks could get complacent, as their three-point shooting has become some of the best in the league. However, their three-point defense has become literally the worst in the league.
It shocks me that coach Tom Thibodeau is not making adjustments or making the Knicks hold their “accountability” that has become such a common word with the team.
The defense made the Knicks who they were last year, and if they do not get back to giving that grind-it-out defensive effort, they will have to worry about becoming a team in a play-in game.
New York Knicks: Tom Thibodeau Overplaying His Starters
I’ll be honest, when the Knicks hired Tom Thibodeau to lead the ship, I hated the call. I thought Thibs had not adjusted to the times, and he would burn his players out.
I’m not here to say I was right all along, I was dead wrong. I was actually so painfully wrong considering Thibs won NBA Coach of the Year last season.
Thibs is more comfortable with his guys taking threes on fast breaks and shooting a few feet behind the arc (paging the fearless Immanuel Quickley).
However, it does feel like he is overworking his starters, and it needs to stop.
I’ve actually mentioned this before, specifically regarding Julius Randle in the playoffs. Many responses claimed I was overreacting, and maybe I was, I mean, the last time the Knicks made the playoffs, the most popular things on the internet were the app Vine and The Harlem Shake, so maybe I was a tad on edge.
I genuinely stand by the fact that Thibs still overworks players. Obi Toppin was picked 8th overall in 2020 and was seen as pretty NBA ready. He’s now in his second season and clearly seems ready for bigger minutes.
It honestly makes no sense to me why Julius Randle is playing 36 minutes per night. They do not need Randle out there constantly to succeed. This team is much more talented than last year’s team.
Right now, with 69 games left, Randle is projected to get 2484 minutes for the rest of the season if his minutes per game stay at 36. If the Knicks gave Toppin even 4 of the minutes Randle gets, that would add up. If they cut 4 minutes off per night for Randle, he will get 276 more minutes of rest. That totals up to an estimate of 6 fewer games played for the Knicks star.
Tom Thibodeau needs to cut Julius Randle’s minutes. He looks exhausted, he does not have the same explosion late in games because he plays too much.
Carrying around 250 pounds while being the first option on a playoff team is exhausting. He deserves rest, as do the rest of the starters, especially when your bench may be playing better than your starting rotation.
New York Knicks: Playing to the Level of their competition
This is something that the Knicks have done for many years. This year has been the epitome of playing to the level of competition.
It feels like every Knicks game this season is a close game, win or lose. The 7-6 Knicks have the second-lowest margin of victory out of all teams, with a positive margin of victory at 0.46.
The Knicks, even when they are the much more talented team, seem to play just to the level of their competition. This is forcing unnecessarily close games that sometimes the Knicks let slip, including a terribly ugly loss to the Orlando Magic earlier this year.
Though it can be fun for us fans to watch close games, we all are starting to feel like we need a break. Imagine how the players feel.
It is super stressful to play close games, and you exert far more energy. This goes back to Thibs’ tendency to burn players out by the playoffs, as though Thibodeau is not at fault, he should emphasize that close games can go either way.
Playing the majority of 82 games where it comes down to one possession, changing the game is not how you formulate a top-4 seed record. If the Knicks want to be a top-4 seed again, they need to create separation between them and the teams at the bottom of the Eastern Conference.