The New York Knicks’ latest loss came at the hands of the Bulls in Chicago on Sunday night, 109-103. As the score suggests, it was certainly a winnable game, just like many of the team’s losses this season.
While the defense did its best to contain the talented Bulls offense without both Mitchell Robinson and Taj Gibson, in the end, Chicago made their shots while the Knicks did not.
From a scoring standpoint, it sounds like it was just another day for the Knickerbockers. However, that wasn’t the case. A beacon of hope was displayed in the form of Julius Randle, who finally broke out of his slump by carrying the offense all night long. Randle finished with a very efficient 34 points (13/19 shooting, 7/8 on free throws).
Are the New York Knicks starting to figure it out?
The 34 point outburst by Randle came just a day removed from what seemed to be another broken slump. Evan Fournier put together a 19 point game in which he sunk 5 3-pointers to help New York defeat the Houston Rockets 106-99 on Saturday evening.
For roughly three weeks and 12 games now, we have been waiting for the Knicks offense to wake up from this nightmare. Although the entirety of their bench has been more than admirable during this grueling stretch, the starters have done very little to score and even defend in a way that gets W’s.
Yes, Randle’s heroics came to no avail in the Windy City and Fournier’s resurgence still needed the aid of 17 fourth quarter points from Alec Burks just to barely beat a pathetic Rockets squad. However, this could be the makings of a significant turnaround for the team.
The return of Nerlens Noel (3 blocks vs CHI), along with the plausible revival of Randle and Fournier, point towards better days ahead. However, the Knicks need to see even more changes if they plan on making this the moment they reclaim the season.
Interestingly enough, the DHO’s (dribble hand-offs) have returned for the Randle-Fournier duo in recent games. This was a play that worked wonders during the early days of this season when the New York Knicks offense was among the league’s best.
Perhaps this played a major role in both players finding their rhythm. They seem to have realized how big of a component the DHO’s are to their success, so hopefully, we see those two running that play a lot more.
The upcoming schedule is quite a doozy. But, if either Kemba Walker or RJ Barrett can join Randle and Fournier in bringing consistent shooting and scoring to the starting five, then the team can easily be back on track. Additionally, I have full confidence in the bench continuing to be fantastic. We expected this backup unit to be elite and so far they have been just that.
Buckets have come naturally for this group, so the starters getting back up to speed would take a ton of pressure off the second unit. They deserve to be given the liberty to just do their thing out there rather than being burdened with the task of closing score gaps and winning every game on their own. Especially now with Derrick Rose’s magic starting to wear off (combined 5/19 shooting vs HOU and CHI), the starters have to find a way to get better.
While offense has been the biggest concern for the Knicks, the defense will have to improve as well if the next few games are going to be a turning point for the club. This should happen seamlessly as they hopefully get back Robinson and Gibson alongside Noel.
RJ Barrett has clearly struggled to replicate even a slither of what we witnessed from him during that 5 game stretch. Everything from his finishing to his spot-up shooting has been dreadful. And during some contests, it seems to have affected his defense.
Barrett is a huge part of can make the team’s defense great. Against Chicago, he did a great job of guarding Zach LaVine, which is by no means easy. Hopefully, he keeps that up going forward, and maybe his defensive contributions can help him get going on the other side of the ball.
Lastly, Randle also needs desperately to get it together on that end. He has so often looked completely lost or uninterested on defense. Sure, he has a lot on his mind trying to cure the offensive woes to help himself and his teammates. But, figuring that out will be insignificant at times if he is still giving up a ton of points by missing rotations and putting up a miserable individual effort.
The Knicks may be the victors of 2 of their last 4 games, having seen great single showings on offense from the likes of Randle, Burks, Walker, Fournier, and Quickley. But, those players and others need to all combine their efforts on both ends of the ball if they plan on winning games on a regular basis once more.
For now, the answer to the question “are the knicks turning a corner” is still up in the air. If Randle and Fournier can string together some games like the ones they had this weekend with help from others in the immediate future though, then the answer will quickly become a decisive yes.