It's the Little Things

Yes, four starters scored 20 points, but Friday's resounding victory was all about New York's work on the margins.

Good morning! Is it Week 2 already? You know what that means…

TIME FOR A WINNING STREAK!

News & Notes

🏀 As expected, the Westchester Knicks picked Landry Shamet and Matt Ryan with the first two selections of Saturday’s G-League draft. For Shamet, the pick will allow him to rehab his dislocated shoulder with the Knicks, while Ryan is a candidate for a roster spot moving forward. Assuming New York eventually converts Ariel Hukporti from a two-way contract to a regular NBA deal, Ryan could take Hukporti’s open two-way spot and be free to join the big club.

🏀 The Knicks play their third game of the season tonight against the Cavs at MSG. Tip off is at 7:30, and while Josh Hart is questionable with right ankle impingement and Deuce McBride is probable with left knee hyperextension, we’d all be pretty shocked if either iron man missed the game.

If you want to watch the game along with me and Andrew Claudio, tomorrow is also our first KFS Watch-Along of the season. Just go to the KFS YouTube channel and tune into the live feed. Unfortunately, that means I’ll be off for halftime tonight, but I’ll be back on Wednesday.

Cleaning it Up

The best part about New York’s home-opening win against the Pacers?

We don’t need to talk about the Boston game anymore.

At least for the moment. No, the issues we saw against the Celtics didn’t magically disappear, but Friday night was a good reminder that most games won’t come against the best team in the league playing at peak levels.

In addition to facing a lesser opponent who wasn’t exactly scorching the nets, the Knicks did a bunch of good things throughout their first game at the Mecca. Let’s go through some of them now.

Optimizing Josh Hart

For as much conversation as it generated in some corners of the internet, Josh Hart didn’t have a terrible performance in Boston, but there were a few possessions where the Celtics used his hesitancy to shoot threes against him.

So naturally, Hart put up six 3-pointers against the Pacers, tying his fifth highest regular season total as a Knick. He only hit one, but the attempts themselves are in furtherance of a greater long term goal. At the very least, Hart needs to make teams think twice before they completely ignore him behind the arc. Ideally a few of them go in as well.

The reason why those attempts are important was shown on the very first possession against the Pacers:

Guarding a JB/OG high screen, Indy tries to trap Brunson, leaving Anunoby to roll unfettered towards the hoop. Seeing this, Tyrese Haliburton darts over to tag OG, leaving his man - Hart - all alone in the corner.

After Brunson hits Mikal with the next pass (nice down screen from KAT by the way), Bridges swings the rock to Hart, who sees a frantic Hali running back towards him. He’s able to use Haliburton’s exuberance against him, attacking and drawing Siakam in to protect the rim. That leaves Aaron Nesmith guarding two men, and Hart does a great job momentarily faking a pass to OG in the corner, getting Nesmith to bite before tossing it to Brunson for a wide open attempt from deep.

The shot misses, but this is great offense. It only happens because Hali fears Hart just enough as a corner threat, thus giving him the runway he needed to make dominoes start to fall.

But what about times when teams do ignore Hart behind the arc? He’s able to make them pay in other ways:

Again, this play starts because the Pacers are so damn scared of Brunson. He responds by slicing through their wall like a hot knife through butter.

(Again, nice job of screening from KAT!)

With the Jalen Express fast approaching the station, Siakam has to abandon OG in the corner to guard the rim. It works, as he deters Brunson’s attempt enough to force the miss, but his choice opens up another opportunity when Haliburton has to shade towards the corner in case JB tries to hit OG for a great look.

That gives Hart another runway, and with no one there to box him out, the preeminent offensive rebounding wing in the NBA does what he does best.

Through two games, Hart has the best individual offensive rating on the Knicks at 133.3, whereas New York has scored just 101.4 points per 100 possessions when he sits. The latter number is by far the lowest off-court number on the team, with Jalen’s 109.6 a distant second.

For a guy who doesn’t make threes, good things often happen on offense when Josh Hart is on the floor.

Mikal the Playmaker

Coming into the season, an inordinate amount of attention was paid to Mikal Bridges as a scorer, and to some extent that wasn’t wrong. Between the whole shooting form hullabaloo and the need to replace Randle’s and DiVincenzo’s scoring, Bridges will need hit nylon early and often.

But perhaps the more interesting aspect of Mikal’s season, at least from a developmental standpoint, is how he progresses as a playmaker. Bridges has never been a guy who’s going to run a ton of pick & rolls, but even a little bit from him can go a long way, and he’s made small but steady strides in this area throughout his career.

Watch Bridges manipulate the defense on this play, for instance:

The action at the top of the key forces a momentary double, which baits Obi Toppin into covering Sims as he rolls into the dunkers spot, which then opens up the pass to an open OG Anunoby behind the arc.

Kudos on this play also go out to Cam Payne, whose screen ensures that Toppin won’t be able to contest Anunoby’s attempt, and Jericho Sims, who sets a brick wall of a screen before diving hard to the rim.

I was particularly happy to see Sims getting praised after the game because I thought his play was downright competent. If he can do that on a regular basis, New York will be alright.

Big Purr

No analysis here…just thrilled to see a Knick center demand the ball 20 feet from the rim and then back down one of the better defensive centers in the league until he’s close enough for the smoothest baby hook you’ll ever see.

On the very next play, after Nembhard briefly switches onto KAT behind the arc following a Mikal screen, Towns popped for a made triple.

These back to back plays were a good reminder that Karl-Anthony Towns is unguardable when he’s going right. It’ll be up to him to execute, but it’s just as incumbent upon his teammates and coaching staff to find the best ways to use him on a nightly basis.

Progress!

Let’s end today with a look at some of what we saw on defense, where New York undoubtedly improved from opening night, and even in the bad, we can find some good.

On the very first possession of the game, we get a KAT double off the Turner screen:

After the drop disaster on opening night, this had to be considered a welcome sight, but it also momentarily put two on the ball, leaving a 3-on-2 situation on the weak side. The key from there was not to panic.

That starts with Jalen Brunson, who makes a perfectly timed rotation to Turner at the top of the arc, but the real credit goes to OG Anunoby. Left guarding two Pacers at once, he plays it cool, gets in perfect position, and jumps the passing lane at the ideal time to reset the possession. What a gift to have him cleaning up messes all over the court.

That was an example of great defense, but even when things weren’t quite so nice, there were reasons to be encouraged. Here we have another hard hedge by Towns:

McConnell calmly swings the ball to Haliburton who hits Ben Mathurin in the corner. Again, give Brunson credit for the timely rotation after he’s forced to tag the roller, but Mathurin easily dispenses with his closeout. From there, Towns does a nice job of staying vertical and being a large human, but Indy’s second-year swingman is too smooth on the finish.

Technically, this is an example of New York’s two weak defensive starters getting beaten, but it’s hard to fault either too much. Right place, right time, execution just needs to be a bit better. Happy to give it time.

And when the Knicks’ defense was humming on Friday night? It was quite a sight to behold, which brings us to our Autograph Signature Play of the Game:

This play has it all…great screen navigation by Hart, solid positioning by Towns, a perfectly timed switch by Bridges followed by outstanding individual defense on a much bigger player, timely rotations by JB, KAT and OG, and finally a perfect rear contest by Anunoby.

And finally, what game analysis would be complete without our…

Thrilled to introduce a new segment that I’ll be featuring every Monday, courtesy of our friends at Juan, Please. The JP guys were kind enough to send me a case of their brand new T2T cocktail, made with tequila, lemonade and tea. It’s as good as it sounds, as you can probably tell every time I took a sip on Friday’s postgame. If you want to try for yourself, just hit up one of our watch parties or grab a four-pack for yourself.

Speaking of four-packs, four starters scoring 20 or more is pretty impressive, right? It’s good enough to win this week’s top honors, but it ain’t nothin’ compared to what the Knicks did over half a century ago.

In New York’s 1968-69 season finale against the Los Angeles Lakers, all five Knick starters reached the 20-point mark:

Unfortunately, New York still lost to LA, 128-111, in part because four Laker starters topped 20 points.

As was the case for a lot of Knick losses in the 60’s and 70’s, blame Wilt Chamberlain.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”