1.) Knicks' perfect trade target just became painfully obvious (if they insist on another guard, ayo dosunmu should be the guy)
3.) Knicks are confronting a roster truth they can’t afford to ignore
After beginning the season in a shooting slump, Josh Hart is currently tearing it up, by his standards, from beyond the arc. The secret to his recent success? That would be the New York Knicks hiring former Dallas Mavericks shooting coach Peter Patton.
Hart revealed as much following the team’s Monday night victory over the Brooklyn Nets, per The Athletic’s James L. Edwards III:
Just talked to Josh Hart about this. He credited shooting coach Peter Patton the other day and I followed up with him about it.
— James L. Edwards III (@JLEdwardsIII) November 25, 2025
Said one of the first conversations he had with Mike Brown is about his staff and wanting a shooting coach.
Said they’ve made small tweaks https://t.co/H5vm5UiPJF
Whatever these tweaks are, they appear to be working.
While the 30-year-old only went 1-of-3 on triples for the game and remains streaky, his performance from three-point range is night-and-day compared to how the season started. Through his first five appearances, he converted just 2-of-14 triples—a 14.3 percent clip. Since then, he has gone 15-of-35 from beyond the arc, which comes out to a 42.9 percent hit rate.
Subtle changes are making a difference for Josh Hart
Hart is averaging 3.5 attempts from behind the rainbow over his last 10 games. That is…not very high, and arguably not enough. But his per-minute volume is slightly up, and he doesn’t seem as hesitant to get them up.
Most important of all, there does appear to be a change in his mechanics. I won’t pretend to have spotted them all, but side-by-side comps of his form from his first Game to his most recent show a better elbow angle, and just an overall lengthier, more fluid follow-through.
Is that making all the difference? Who knows. The why matters less than the difference existing at all. Especially knowing he’s wearing a finger splint on his shooting hand.
Nobody who has followed Hart over the years will expect this recent trend to last. For reference, he is now 2-of-8 on threes (25 percent) over his past two games. There have always been ebbs and flows to his shooting performance.
Even his stark improvement is buoyed by a couple of outlier performances. He went 4-of-5 from distance in a November 5 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, and was 3-of-4 from downtown in the Knicks’ close-call victory against the Dallas Mavericks.
The Knicks need Josh Hart to keep it up
Racking up outlier games is nevertheless a good thing. It means that Hart is taking threes, like, at all.
There is value in volume itself. Attempting threes forces opponents to guard you differently, even if they view you as a non-threat. Defenses will still abandon Hart, or futz with his assignments. But staying home on players spacing in place, and closing out on three-point attempts is instinctual.
For their part, the Knicks need Hart to continue firing away. It is mission critical to turning three- and four-out lineups into truer four- and five-out combinations.
Any additional contributions from deep are also essential following Landry Shamet’s shoulder injury, and what is shaping up to be a lengthy absence from OG Anunoby while he recovers from a hamstring strain. Hart will never replace the gravity from either of them. But taking and making more threes will be critical to optimizing the Knicks offense, and allowing head coach Mike Brown to play him alongside Mitchell Robinson, Tyler Kolek, or even Mohamed Diawara.
Whether Hart’s improvement can be sustainable, let alone scaled up, remains to be seen. That we’re talking about his improvement at all, though, is a potentially big freaking deal.