Josh Hart has a message for anyone worried about the New York Knicks’ three-point defense to start the season: Relax.
Asked about opponents shooting over 40 percent on triples when playing the Knicks, Hart couldn’t even bring himself to feign concern.
“Teams are making shots,” he said during his Friday media availability, via the New York Post’s Jared Schwartz. “It’s the NBA, man. It goes in flows. We’ve played eight games. The next eight games we could have the best t-point defense. It might not be because our defense is great, but just because some teams miss shots.”
You know what? Hart’s right.
Knicks opponents are on fire from three, but…
New York’s opponents are indeed feasting from beyond the arc. Only the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Clippers are surrendering a higher clip on threes to rival offenses. What’s more, opponents aren’t just torching the Knicks from distance. They are doing so on high volume.
Close to 44 percent of opponent shots are coming from behind the rainbow. The Utah Jazz are the lone team forfeiting a higher three-point-attempt rate, and they’re not exactly an aspirational defensive outfit.
Alarm bells are starting to sound around The Mecca, mostly among fans, pundits, and podcasters. Many attribute the issue to shortcomings from Jalen Brunson, and Karl-Anthony Towns. That’s not quite accurate.
Opponents are actually taking fewer threes with Brunson on the floor, and only slightly more when Towns is in the game. On top of that, enemy offenses are shooting a lower clip on their treys when either JB or KAT is on the court. Neither player is directly responsible for these dips, but placing most of the blame on them flies in the face of what’s actually happening.
First and foremost, the Knicks are helping off shooters to limit opportunities in the paint. That is on Towns, who isn’t the strongest rim protector. It’s also on Mitchell Robinson, who has not been totally available, and isn’t playing a ton of minutes.
Mostly, it’s a roster-construction byproduct. New York isn’t teeming with lockdown paint protectors after Robinson. Minutes without him get dicey around the basket. Opponents’ rim frequency increases by 12.8 percent when he’s on the sideline, while their point-blank accuracy rises by nearly 10 percentage points.
Though the Knicks do not excel at limiting opportunities near the basket overall, it would be so much worse if they were actively chasing players off the three-point line.
Expect the Knicks’ three-point defense to improve
These early returns would be one thing if the Knicks were letting up an avalanche of gimme opportunities from distance. They’re not.
Around 23.4 percent of opponents' threes are going unguarded. That is a hair above the league’s current average of 22.3 percent.
Meanwhile, the typical team is shooting 38.8 percent on these uncontested looks, which is right in line with last season’s mark of 38.9 percent. Opponents, however, are drilling closer to 44 percent of their wide-open threes. That number will come down—in large part because the Knicks will face lighter competition.
Six of their first eight games have come against teams in the top-10 of three-point percentage. One of the two outside the top 10 is the Cleveland Cavaliers. They knocked down 41.3 percent of their triples versus New York, and are a more dangerous squad from deep than they’ve shown.
Basically, we should take the same approach here that we took with the Knicks’ own shooting early on: by acknowledging that, while it may not be perfect, their three-point defense isn’t anywhere near as bad as it seems.