The New York Knicks have performed better against the NBA's top teams overall, but just finished getting swept by the Detroit Pistons. In the team's first five games of March, they beat the Spurs, Raptors, and Nuggets by an average margin of 14.67. But they also fell to the Lakers, splitting their season series, and lost their first meeting to the defending-champion Thunder.
All things considered, though, there's no real reason for Knick fans to panic just yet. The up-and-down results could be representative of the team's regular season thus far, but just as easily provide optimism for what things could look like by year's end. Keeping it close with Oklahoma City and beating both San Antonio and Denver is good for New York's resume, especially among those that believe that the Western Conference is the NBA's strongest. But, maybe most importantly, the Knicks have been doing all of this without one of their best players this season: Miles McBride.
Knicks holding strong in 3rd seed without key reserve guard in McBride
Whether it's a credit to McBride, acknowledgement of the Knicks' starters' struggles, or both – the 25-year-old guard has been one of the team's best players all year long. Before getting the surgery that's currently holding him out until around the postseason, he was averaging a career-high 12.9 points per game on 42% 3-point shooting.
In addition to the top-tier perimeter defense that the lengthy guard brings to the table, his offensive production in 28 minutes per game on average was a big deal for New York. The team even started him for a stretch of games earlier in the season when Josh Hart was injured, allowing him to provide the point-of-attack physicality they were desperate in need of.
Just because most of the NBA landscape hasn't caught up to how good McBride has been for the Knicks doesn't mean that fans need to ignore that the team has been without him in these tough losses, like Sunday's to the Lakers. According to Dunks & Threes, McBride's +1.8 offensive estimated plus-minus in his 35 games played this season is in the league's 89th percentile.
McBride's shooting, defense make his case to start worth a listen
The case could easily be made that McBride should reprise his starting role once he returns, given the starting lineup's struggles to counter defenses' coverage of Hart and the defensive struggles that the five-man grouping seems to have.
Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns can absolutely work together, on both ends of the court. But they seem to benefit most when a physical defender, like McBride, Landry Shamet, or even the newly acquired Jose Alvarado, is sharing the court with them.
Starting McBride would allow New York to deploy a bench unit of Alvarado, Shamet, Josh Hart, and Mitchell Robinson: a four-man wrecking crew that could certainly turn the tide of a playoff series with high-impact minutes off of the bench.
The Knicks need to find some consistency ahead of the playoffs, but they shouldn't be too worried about some of these losses. They're missing a major piece of their success thus far, even if national outlets don't really recognize him as such.