10 Random Monday Thoughts

Plus a preview of Warriors Knicks and an updated look at the standings.

Good morning! Jam-packed newsletter today, so let’s get right to it…

Game Night

TONIGHT: Knicks at Warriors, 10:00 pm, ESPN

Injury Report: OG Anunoby will once again be listed as questionable. Golden State seems fully healthy.

Halftime Zoom: The Halftime Zoom has been undefeated on the road trip thus far. Come hang out. Here’s the link.

What to watch for: Prior to last season’s November loss in Golden State (which notably occurred before the Knicks got their shit together), New York had actually won two straight against Steph Curry in his own building, so this task is anything but insurmountable.

Since beating a Brunson-less Knicks team in MSG in late February, the Warriors have continued on the course of wild inconsistency that has defined their season, with a 4-4 stretch that includes big wins against the Bucks and Lakers but also bad losses vs the Bulls and Spurs. Every game from here on in is pivotal as they try to gain home court for the presumptive play-in game against LA, with a (very) outside shot of catching Phoenix, Dallas or Sacramento, all of whom are currently in a 3-way tie ahead of them.

The game will be a fascinating matchup of two starting fives that don’t have a lot of court time together but who have each been utterly dominant in the minutes they’ve played. In 182 minutes together, Golden State’s first five is outscoring teams by 19.0 points per 100 possessions, while New York’s is a plus-21.8 in 54 minutes.

Something, as they say, has gotta’ give.

Standings Update

As feared, all six weekend games involving teams chasing the Knicks didn’t turn out as we might have hoped, with Cleveland’s loss to Houston serving as the only bright spot. Still, New York finds themselves in a good spot, especially with two games tonight where any result will yield some sort of positive: Cleveland at Indy, and Miami at Philly.

Looking forward to tomorrow, Orlando faces Charlotte, so a Knicks loss in Golden State likely means a flip flop of the four and five spots heading into the Denver game on Thursday.

10 Random Monday Thoughts

Wanted to hit on a number of topics as we settle in for the final fifth of the regular season. In no particular order…

1. Depth remains New York’s biggest strength

Before the season started, this was the main talking point for anyone who forecasted a deep playoff run. What the Knicks lacked in top end talent - or what almost everyone thought they lacked in top end talent - they made up for by going (at least) nine deep with quality NBA rotation players.

Those nine players coming out of camp were Jalen Brunson, Julius Randle, Mitchell Robinson, RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, Josh Hart, Isaiah Hartenstein and Quentin Grimes. The Knicks have played 67 games. Multiplied by nine, that’s 603 possible games those nine could have played. Of those 603 possible games, the original nine have accounted for 423 - good for a hair over 70 percent.

Yes, there have been two major trades that sent out three of those nine and returned three other players intended to take the minutes that were lost, and yet according to Basketball Reference’s Win Shares metric, it has been Precious Achiuwa, and not OG Anunoby, Bojan Bogdanovic or Alec Burks, who has contributed to winning the most.

That’s because Anunoby has missed more games than he’s played, and until Saturday night, Bogey and Burks had yet to rid themselves of the Detroit stink.

Achiuwa, meanwhile, joins Deuce McBride, Jericho Sims, Malachi Flynn and Original OG Taj Gibson on the list of guys who had to step into larger roles than anyone would have thought. That’s 17 guys who have gotten rotation minutes at one time or another, and 20 if you count Evan Fournier, Jacob Toppin and Charlie Brown Jr, all of whom were counted on during non-garbage time minutes at some point throughout the season.

In total, 25 players have suited up for the Knicks since opening night, which is the second most behind only the Sixers (27) among the top 10 teams in either conference. No other playoff or play-in team has more than 22.

2. I-Hart: second most important Knick?

Through it all, they have persevered, with different players stepping up at different times.

Need proof? Ask yourself, 67 games in, who is the second most important Knick on the roster? Or the third? At various points along the way, each of Randle, OG, I-Hart, Mitch, Hart and Donte have felt like the correct answer to at least one of those questions, to say nothing of IQ and RJ when they were still here.

The data paints a few different pictures. Looking at the aforementioned Win Shares statistic, the answer by a comfortable margin is Hartenstein, whose 6.1 Win Shares are second to Brunson’s 8.5, and a healthy margin above DiVincenzo’s 4.9. Even though that stat greatly rewards total minutes played, on a per 48-minute basis, Hartenstein is actually ahead of Brunson for the team lead, .193 to .187.

In terms of on/off stats, Cleaning the Glass has OG Anunoby not only as the most positively impactful Knick, but the most helpful player in all of basketball on a per-minute basis. But in that stat too, I-Hart is just behind Jalen among players who have been on the roster all season:

Regardless of what the numbers say, the answer seems to change night to night. That, as much as anything, is the sign of a very good team, if not a great one.

Well, that, and the head of the snake who makes the depth matter in the first place…

3. Brunson’s rare air

I’m taking the full-on homer approach to the last month of the season, during which I will make periodic pleas for Jalen Brunson to get the recognition he damn well deserves.

There are no shortage of ways I’ll be able to do this. Today though, I want to focus on his scoring, because back-to-back 40-burgers is a pretty damn special achievement.

In that spirit, let’s recognize that on Saturday, Brunson pulled ahead of Donovan Mitchell for fifth place on the NBA’s points per game leaderboard among qualified players (so no Joel Embiid). If he can finish fifth or higher, he’ll become only the fifth Knick to do so, joining Melo (six times), Ewing (three), King and McAdoo (once each).

Perhaps more impressive, if Brunson can up his scoring average by another half a point by the end of the season, he’ll become only the 8th player in NBA history to average at least 28 points per game at a height of 6'2" or less, joining Tiny Archibald, World B. Free, Allen Iverson, Steph Curry, Isaiah Thomas, Trae Young and Dame Lillard. Decent company, one might say.

4. Fake-out special

Fantastic job by New York Basketball clipping the pivotal play of Saturday’s win to show how JB used his smarts and his skills to dupe poor rook Keon Ellis:

The kid will be better off for it.

5. Stringing together success

Technically, Saturday’s win secured New York’s first consecutive 40-win seasons since the ‘99-00 and ‘00-01 seasons, but that’s not really accurate. In the lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign, the Knicks went 36-30, which is equivalent to a 45-37 season, so that should count as well.

Combined with the 2012-13 season, those two seasons gave New York the equivalent of 99 wins over two years. Between this season and last season, they now have 87 wins, and would need to go 13-2 over the final 15 games to surpass the two-season accomplishment of a decade ago.

Even though they probably won’t get there, this is still the second most successful back-to-back seasons they’ve had in a quarter century.

Pretty darn good!

6. OG does it

When the Knicks outscored the Kings by six points in OG Anunoby’s 33 minutes on Saturday night, it extended Anunoby’s personal streak of positive plus/minus differentials to 19 games, two of which came during the end of his time in Toronto.

That’s not only the longest streak in the NBA this season, but one of only three such streaks lasting at least 15 games, joining Milwaukee’s Malik Beasley and OG’s own teammate, Mr. Jalen Brunson:

If Anunoby can be a positive in the plus/minus column against Golden State, he’ll become only the fourth player in the last decade with a streak of at least 20 games.

Appropriately enough, tonight he’ll face off against two of the other three players who did it:

Speaking of Anunoby…

7. Death Lineup

…there have been a lot of tweets going around highlighting all of New York’s two and three-man combinations that are dominating those respective leaderboard. All are impressive in their own right.

My favorite, however, is the four-man grouping of Brunson, Hart, Anunoby and Hartenstein. In 124 minutes together over 11 games, that foursome is outscoring opponents by 40.4 points per 100 possessions. The next closest group with over 100 minutes of court time is the Embiid-Maxey-Melton-Batum quartet, who is plus-34.1 in 227 minutes.

The best part is how they’re doing it. They have a 120.6 offensive rating that would rank second in the league over a full season, but have achieved that mark with middle-of-the-road efficiency. Instead of making shots at a high clip, they’re scoring in droves because of elite offensive rebounding and by being frequent visitors to the charity stripe. On defense, they’re succeeding by preventing opposing offensive boards as well as any group in the league, and by stifling teams to the tune of a 40.0 eFG%.

That number will come up, and shows how these groups have benefited from some positive opponents’ shooting luck. Even so, with a comical 80.2 defensive rating, there’s more than enough wiggle room for them give up more points while remaining an unstoppable two-way unit.

8. Mobile I-Hart

One of the reasons we should trust the defense to hold up is that Isaiah Hartenstein is back to being himself.

For him, that not only means elite rim protection…

…but ample mobility on the perimeter.

We saw that early and often against the Kings, when the Knicks would routinely use I-Hart to show De’Aaron Fox a second body above the arc while shading a third defender to Sabonis. In order for that to work though, Hartenstein had to consistently get back to Domantas before havoc could ensue.

He was routinely up to the challenge, and it helped New York hold Sacramento to their lowest home point total in nearly two years.

9. Knicks history stuff.

Some things to keep an eye on over the final month…

Even in the midst of a slump, Donte Divincenzo is on track to surpass Evan Fournier’s team record for made threes in a season. He’s up to 212, 29 away from Fournier’s record of 241. If he hits two 3-pointers per game and plays in every game, he’ll have the record by one. He’s currently averaging 3.2 threes per game.

Meanwhile, Jalen Brunson has a good chance to pass J.R. Smith’s 189 for the fifth best Knicks 3-point total ever. He’s currently at 166.

If we’re really looking to get ambitious, if Jalen Brunson plays in every remaining game and averages 34.4 points over that time, he’ll finish the season with the third highest scoring average in Knicks history, passing Ewing’s ‘89-90 campaign (28.6 points) and Melo’s ‘12-13 season (28.7) to trail only Richie Guerin’s ‘61-62 output (29.5) and the great Bernard King (32.9 in 1984-85).

Finally, Brunson - who else? - has a chance to take down a long-standing franchise record for advanced stats:

If you, like me, plan on tracking this daily until April 14, seek help immediately.

10. Who’s on the outs?

Saturday night was the first time in nine games that Alec Burks saw more court time than Deuce McBride.

In the three games since Anunoby’s return, those two have split an average of 30 minutes between the two of them. One would figure that dynamic will remain in place until such time that Julius Randle returns. Bojan Bogdanovic, meanwhile, saw his highest minute total in five games in Sacramento after seeing what were easily his two lowest totals in two of the four previous games (11:54 against Orlando and 13:53 at Portland).

Unlike Burks and Deuce, there’s no clear give & take partner for Bogey’s minutes, although with Anunoby’s return, Achiuwa seems to have moved over into the full-time backup center spot, so Bogey and Precious would not seem to be in competition at the moment.

It begs the question that we’ve all been wondering for some time now: what happens when Randle returns?

Let’s assume that he, like Hartenstein, Brunson and Anunoby in recent weeks, will be on some kind of a minutes limit - perhaps in the 32-minute range. Some of those minutes will come from players who won’t be leaving the rotation. Josh Hart, for instance, should go down to a more manageable 30-32 minutes instead of his current 38-40. Bogey also figures to take a bit of a haircut, and might slot into something around six or seven minutes a half.

But that still leaves at least 10-12 minutes unaccounted for. In short, whether they realize it or not, Burks and McBride are likely competing for a rotation spot in whatever time we have left before Randle returns, and while Deuce had the clear edge going into the weekend, it was nice to see Alec finally throw his hat in the ring.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether any of these guys see the court in the second half of a close playoff game. In that sense, the final 15 games won’t only be a race for playoff positioning, but a proving ground for some of the current rotation players to show their worth heading into the spring.

That’s it for today! See everyone tomorrow with a full recap of the Warriors game.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”