A Defensive 180
The Knicks defense has flipped the script under Mike Miller
In this newsletter:
Happy Friday everyone!
As we inch ever so close to Christmas, it also feels like we’re at a critical juncture of the Knicks’ season (actually, has there been a non-critical juncture of this season?)
The December 15 starting gun on trade season has sounded, and the moves many hoped New York would make as soon as the bell rang never came. Now, as the New Year draws closer, it’s unclear whether the Knicks will be buyers or sellers.
Well, that’s not quite true…everyone figures that they will eventually be sellers, simply because February 6 is late enough in the season that New York will almost certainly be out of it by then. In the meantime, there are jobs on the line, and seven weeks is a long time.
But it can get late early in this league, as David Fizdale recently found out. Between now and Januray 1st, the Knicks will play a few games in which they’re supposed to get soundly beaten (tonight in Miami, tomorrow vs the Bucks), and then three winnable affairs (home and away games against the Wizards sandwiched around a “road” game in Brooklyn). If they can find a way to win more than they lose over this stretch, we might really have to start talking about things a little differently when the calander flips to 2020.
Is that possible? The early indications are a definite “maybe.” Six games isn’t enough to draw any sweeping conclusions, but it has been enough of a sample size to notice some very distinct changes under new head coach Mike Miller.
To this end, Posting and Toasting’s Dallas Amico put together an excellent, video-heavy examination of the Knicks defensive adjustments under Miller which you should absolutely check out. It examines how the Knicks are playing a simpler, safer scheme that fits much better with their personnel. If you don’t believe your eyes, then let’s check out some numbers.
How about we start here: over the last six games, the Knicks have given up the fourth best location effective field goal percentage in the league according to Cleaning the Glass. That means if they’d given up the league average field goal percentage from each spot on the court, they’d be a top-five defense, at least by eFG% allowed. Under Fiz, New York was 28th in the same stat.
If this feels like a BS thing to point to, take solace in the fact that the top five teams in location eFG% on the year rank fourth (Philly), 12th (Orlando), first (Milwaukee), ninth (Utah) and 14th (Brooklyn) in overall defense. Any statistic that has the Knicks alongside those five defenses in anything whatsoever is good.
It also doesn’t mean they’re suddenly the 96 Bulls. Six games into the Miller era and New York is still 23rd in defensive efficiency, giving up 111.5 points per 100 possessions (Under Fizdale, they were giving up 113.0 and ranked 24th). The signs are there, however, that things could improve even more.
We constantly heard Fiz talk about guarding the paint, and even heard him cite statistics about how their paint defense was among the best in the league. This was true…except “paint defense” is very different from “rim defense.” Under Fiz, the Knicks still allowed opponents to take a whopping 36.9 percent of their attempts at the rim, which ranked 21st in the NBA.
Under Miller, this number has dropped all the way to 28.7 percent, which is third best in the league over that span, behind only the Bucks (who have perfected the art of protecting the rim) and Brooklyn.
Of course, shots at the rim are only one of the three most efficient shots in basketball, the other two being corner threes and free throws. If you’re borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and giving up tons of looks from the corner, or fouling guys before that can even get to the rim, all of the above numbers are meaningless.
Except the exact opposite has happened. Under Miller, the Knicks have given up the ninth lowest frequency of corner three looks (clocking in at 7.0 percent) and the third lowest free throw rate (14.1 percent) in the game. It’s a small sample size, but New York is the only team in the NBA in the top 10 in all three defensive categories (rim frequency, corner-3 frequency and free throw rate) since December 6. That’s not bad.
Under Fiz, the Knicks gave up the sixth highest frequency of corner threes, and were 27th in defensive free throw rate. Basically, teams were playing the Fizdale Knicks with the same mentality Augustus Gloop had when he walked into the chocolate factory…You get candy! Now you get candy! Candy for everyone!!!
Of course these shiny new numbers need to be taken with a grain of salt. Of New York’s last six opponents, only two (Portland, 10th, and Indiana, 13th) rank in the top half of the league in offense, and Golden State and Atlanta are both train wrecks.
But considering where they were coming from, any signs of progress, even faint ones, are well worth taking.
Now let’s see how they do against the big boys. To Miami we go.
Player Spotlight
Let’s talk quickly about the reigning Eastern Conference Player of the Week, Bam Adebayo, who’s up nine percent and currently trading at $6.31 a share.
Bam has been a menace all year. He’s averaging 22.8 fantasy points per game thanks to solid across the board production. Adebayo is one of three players in the league averaging 15/10/4/1/1. The other two? Giannis and Karl-Anthony Towns.
Tonight, he’ll start against Taj Gibson, but I’m figuring he’ll get his fair share of time against Mitchell Robinson. We’ve seen Robinson (who himself is one of two players averaging 15 points, 10 boards, 2.5 blocks and one steal per 36 minutes) take match-ups against other big men in his draft class personally. If nothing else, it should make for a fun battle.
If Robinson wants to continue staying out of foul trouble (and Bam is thinking the same thing) it might result in a nice statistical night for both men.
(Remember, if you haven’t used it yet,click here and enter code KFS when signing up for $10 added to your initial investment of $10 or more.)
News & Notes
compiled by Michael Schatz (@mschatz99)
Two really great pieces dropped yesterday regarding Mike Miller:
Fred Kerber of the Post dropped a historical profile of Miller that I’m not going to spoil but simply say that if there’s one thing you read this week, it should be this. Lots of quotes in there from Jeff Van Gundy, who coached with Miller for USA basketball. Definitely check it out.
Ian Begley also had a Miller story with plenty of good quotes, but from current Knicks players, about why Miller has had success so far. He also name dropped our own Spencer Pearlman (!!!!!) in the piece.
On This Date: David Lee’s game-winning tip-in and Patrick Ewing suffers career-altering wrist injury
by Vivek Dadhania (@vdadhania)
On Trent Tucker’s birthday, David Lee not only defied the Trent Tucker rule, but also most basketball odds with an unbelievable tip in with 0.1 seconds left in double overtime to beat the Charlotte Bobcats 111-109 in double overtime.
That’s it…see everyone Monday morning!