This is supposed to be the “get right” stretch for the New York Knicks and maybe, just maybe, they are beginning to figure out their brand of basketball.
It’s been an ongoing identity crisis for the Knicks all season long. Cold streaks, slumps, a lack of team defense, playing up and down to their competition — the inconsistencies and absence of cohesion has been a complete 180 from the grind-it-out, underdog team of last season.
Yet here we are in the middle portion of the season and it feels as though this team is slowly but surely starting to gel.
Can the New York Knicks sustain success?
This team started the year 7-3. Since then, they’ve gone 13-17.
It’s been a struggle to maintain any sort of consistency for New York this season and the blame has been pointed at just about every single player and coach at some point throughout the year.
It feels like ever-evolving criticism and a lot of the time, it feels justified. The lows of the Knicks and certain players have been very, very low. Well below expectations.
But this is sports. Drama, hyperbole, emotion.
New York is still right there in the playoff picture. As Julius Randle said of the team learning to gel and play together earlier this season, “That s*** takes time”.
There have been some encouraging signs in recent weeks that this team can get closer to their success from last season. Let’s look at some of the player roles, evolution from opening night, trends, and statistics that may indicate this team is headed in the right direction.
Figuring out “the problem” with the New York Knicks offense this season has been an impossible task. When specific players’ lows have been so low, it’s easy to just have instant knee-jerk reactions that they’re the main cause for the lack of winning.
There are plenty of tools on this roster, in fact, it’s one of the deeper rosters in the NBA, it’s just been about figuring out the best combinations and roles for all of these players, which is easier said than done.
If I can think of an all-encompassing way to describe what needs to happen for the Knicks to succeed on offense, it’s that they need to play to each other’s strengths.
Again, easier said than done, but there is some data that we can point to that New York can continue to hammer.
New York Knicks: RJ Barrett & Evan Fournier roles
After watching these guys play together for almost half a season, it feels RJ Barrett needs to be involved in the playmaking more than Evan Fournier.
RJ Barrett is a much better downhill, attacking playmaker than Evan Fournier.
This is about more than just assist numbers, this is more about Barrett being able to consistently get into the teeth of the defense. He can navigate the interior and has shown the ability to make the right read, whether it’s the alley-oop to the rolling big or the cross-court kick-out to the open shooter.
While finishing at the rim has been an area of concern for Barrett, actually getting to the rim and drawing in defenders has been something he can do with ease.
There have been countless possessions this season where you see Evan Fournier have the ball and he’s just waiting for a play to develop. He’s holding the ball, not dribbling, watching teammates try to fight over screens, and suddenly there are 6 seconds left on the shot clock.
He does not have that same urge to put his head down and get to the rack that Barrett does, and that’s actually what we’ve seen more of from Barrett lately.
RJ Barrett has averaged 16.3 drives per game in his last four games. Prior to those four games, he was averaging 8.6 drives per game.
Barrett getting the ball in his hands earlier in the shot clock to generate offense can be a really effective part of this team’s success.
This isn’t even to say that Fournier can’t make plays. I watched the game last night. I saw him go supernova and drop 41 points.
It’s just that Fournier is at his best when he’s playing fast and playing along the perimeter. That means dribble handoffs and of course, catch-and-shoot 3s.
Let Fournier play get into those situations where his 2-3 dribble combos create the most space. If not, make him pass out and reset.
Speed and decision-making are paramount for this offense to get into a rhythm, especially for another key player.
The New York Knicks need Julius Randle’s playmaking
Randle is going to be the leader of this offense because of his talent. There aren’t many players with his size and strength who have his level of quickness, scoring off the dribble, and vision.
The problem is, he’s been extremely inconsistent and Knicks fans saw this two years ago.
Randle is a tremendous basketball player and from what I’ve seen this season, the main issue is that he’s trying to be too perfect. He’s pressing, he’s taking a ton of time to make decisions, he wants each decision to be correct.
He needs to trust himself more. Make faster decisions. You see the indecisiveness when he’s shooting the ball.
It’s been brought up many times this season, the amount of pump fakes on open 3-pointers. You have to wonder if that’s something coming from the analytics department. We didn’t really see this last year, and it hasn’t been working so far this season.
This is where you pair the eye test with statistics.
Randle is shooting 32.8% on catch-and-shoot 3-pointers this season on 3.3 attempts per game.
Last year, he shot 41.7% on catch-and-shoot 3-pointers on 3.8 attempts per game.
That’s not just regression, that’s falling off a cliff.
You can just see it as you watch the games, how it feels like an open catch-and-shoot isn’t his first choice. The first choice is to pump fake it and drive and it’s affecting his rhythm. You take those open looks.
This is a Randle issue and a team-wide issue as well. The Knicks were 19th in catch-and-shoot 3-pointer attempts last season and shot 40.2%!
This season, they are 2nd last in the league in attempts and shooting 36.0%.
This is a superb shooting team. There are shooters all over the floor in any given lineup. They need to let it fly.
Credit to Max Hoover who also writes for DailyKnicks, who has been beating the drum on highlighting the “potential assists” from Julius Randle and how the Knicks haven’t been knocking down the open looks he’s been providing with his passes.
From the playmaking side of things, Randle has looked a lot stronger and decisive lately. He was a big reason the Knicks were able to come back against the Celtics last night and it’s starting to become infectious.
This was actually a mailbag question on a recent episode of one of my favorite podcasts, “Real Ones” with Logan Murdock and Raja Bell. A listener asked how often do players improvise and stray away from the offense or play design of the coach.
What did former NBA player Raja Bell and longtime NBA reporter Logan Murdock answer?
“All the damn time!”
This team feels like they’re trying too hard to run structured plays.
They need to trust in their own talent while playing to one another’s strengths. It feels like they’re finally starting to do exactly that.
It’s taken some time to play with each other. There have been some major low points, but guess what — in spite of all of the negativity and doomsday talk, the New York Knicks are currently a play-in team and are 2.5 games back of the 6th seed in the playoffs.
This group has what it takes to be a playoff team and they may have just started to figure it out.