All Good Things...

...must come to an end. That's not a surprise. The bigger question remains: What do the Knicks do over the next 72 hours to get back on track?

Good morning! Can it really be trade deadline week already? Life comes at you fast in the National Basketball Association.

We’ll surely spend a lot of time talking trades the rest of this week, but today we focus on a valiant effort that ultimately came up short.

Game 50: Knicks 105, Lakers 113

39 years old…can he retire already?

In a New York minute…

An absolute nail-biter through three and a half quarters.

We knew early on that this would be a defense-first affair, as the teams combined to shoot 6-of-24 from deep and 21-of-55 overall in the first quarter. Things ramped up a bit in the second, and after a 59-all tie at halftime, the Knicks had a few third quarter pushes that made it look like this would be their night.

But after taking the largest lead of the game for either team at 86-78 with 1:12 to go in the third, the Lakers began to take control. LA outscored New York 35-19 the rest of the way that included a nearly seven-minute scoreless stretch for the home team. There wasn’t much drama in the closing minutes despite the fact that neither team ever led by double digits.

Three Things

1. One Man Show. This was arguably the least complicated loss of the season to diagnose, as well as one of the easiest to stomach because of the effort on display.

Playing without OG Anunoby, Quentin Grimes and Julius Randle, the majority of the offensive workload once again fell on the shoulders of New York’s burly point guard. To his credit, Jalen Brunson delivered as best he could, scoring or assisting on 62 of the team’s 105 points.

But once the Lakers went to an “anyone but Jalen” defense in the fourth, the Knicks were helpless to combat it, going nearly seven minutes without scoring a point.

On one hand, the team got some good looks during that stretch that just missed. On the other hand, finding good shots was like getting water from a rock, as the Lakers were happy to play off of both Precious Achiuwa (0-for-3 from deep) and Josh Hart (2-for-6; 1-of-2 in the fourth quarter), while Brunson finally succumbed to the suffocating defense, going 0-of-4 with two turnovers during the cold spell. The fact that he wasn’t feeling it from deep (just one make in six attempts) made life particularly tough down the stretch.

Even with that icy finish to end the nine-game winning streak, there are a few reasons this loss shouldn’t sting too much, even putting aside the injuries.

For one, the Lakers are a very good defensive team when they want to be, and you could tell they wanted this one badly in what could be LeBron James’ final visit to MSG (Also a sign they wanted this: LeBron and Anthony Davis took the previous game off, and were very well rested for the national TV affair).

Speaking of AD, he was in DPOY form, and defensive liability D’Angelo Russell didn’t see the court in the fourth quarter. That’s quite a different story from the last three games where New York was able to overcome its skeleton crew offense in part because they faced three of the league’s worst defenses. Looking ahead, the next three opponents don’t figure to be as daunting.

The Knicks also did a lot of things well, grabbing 18 offensive boards to LA’s three and turning the ball over just seven times. That resulted in 20 more field goal attempts than the Lakers, which is an absurd margin for a losing team. The discrepancy was mitigated a bit by New York losing the free throw battle 27 to 15, but even so, it takes a nightmare shooting performance to end up on the wrong end of a game like this.

Sadly, that’s exactly what the Knicks had in going 10-of-35 from deep, which brings us to a larger issue that has transpired ever since MSG became home to a MASH unit. New York has hit a hair under 30 percent from behind the arc since Randle and Anunoby have been out of the lineup. With only one premium threat (Brunson) and one secondary threat (DiVincenzo, who like Jalen, did all he could on Saturday), it’s too easy for decent defenses to stop New York’s attack, especially when the rest of the remaining supporting cast is having an off night (Hart, Hartenstein, Achiuwa and McBride shot a combined 14-for-44 from the field). DiVincenzo has become an elite threat from outside, but he’s seeing less and less space as opponents key in on him with more comfort than ever.

Part of the solution is simply getting guys healthy, even if its just Anunoby and Grimes. That’s necessary not only to juice the offense, but to ease up unsustainable minute totals. Four Knicks played at least 40 minutes in this game, including 45 for Brunson. The All-Star break can’t get here soon enough.

But even then, there isn’t enough juice in this rotation to sustain them for 48 minutes against good teams.

To that end, for as well as they’ve been playing, it’s hard to imagine a trade isn’t on the horizon. That’s especially true with the uncertainty surrounding Randle’s recovery timetable and risk of re-injury if and when he returns. Even with Julius, New York had issues scoring whenever Brunson took a seat. The writing is on the wall for a move to be made.

On that note…

2. Coming up big in the Klutch. No, New York didn’t come through in the clutch on Saturday, but they did accomplish something of even greater importance earlier in the weekend. According to Stefan Bondy, the long time cold war between CAA (and by extension the Knicks) and Klutch Sports Group may finally be over.

After this news dropping, the internet when momentary bonkers (how uncharacteristic, I know) when people started extrapolating LeBron’s latest passive aggressive emoji into an impending trade with the Knicks.

Alas, this theory was debunked several times over before it even made its way through the news cycle.

That doesn’t mean Friday’s Malta Summit won’t have a significant impact on New York’s team-building approach moving forward, perhaps starting in the next several days. Dejounte Murray, Malcolm Brogdon, Jordan Clarkson and Collin Sexton are all Klutch clients and have been connected to the Knicks in some form or fashion.

Does one of them make sense before the trade deadline? Or will it be someone else like Bruce Brown (CAA), Alec Burks (Octagon), Tyus Jones (LIFT) or a player whose name hasn’t even been in rumors? We’ll find out soon enough.

(One quick mea culpa on possible trades: I’ve noted a few times over the last several weeks that because the Knicks are hard-capped, they can only take back 110 percent of the salary they send out in any deal, citing some earlier reporting from Fred Katz over the summer. Well, it turns out Mr. Katz got it wrong, and misinterpreted a CBA quirk that actually doesn’t impact New York. He is officially on my shit list. The good news is that trades will be much easier for the Knicks to pull off than I’d originally anticipated. They can take back contracts up to $7.5 million more than what they send out, and if they’re making a trade with a team below the first tax apron, they can send out up to $7.5 million more than they take back. With that much wiggle room, there shouldn’t be any financial restrictions that stand in the way of acquiring players the front office has their eye on heading into Thursday at 3pm.)

3. 50 and Fabulous. Despite the loss on Saturday night, the Knicks have to feel great about where they stand after 50 games.

For starters, this is by far their best record through 50 game in the Leon/Thibs era:

• ‘20-21: 25-25 (.500)

• ‘21-22: 23-27 (.460)

• ‘22-23: 27-23 (.540)

Better yet, in two of the previous three seasons, New York hadn’t yet hit their stride. Three years ago, the Knick won 16 of their final 22 games (72.7 percent) to finish 41-31, and then last year they won 20 of their last 32 (62.5 percent) to end up at 47-35.

Historically, the 32-18 record is tied with the 2012-13 team for the 12th best 50-game start in franchise history, and the best since the ‘96-97 season, when a Ewing-led crew started 36-14 en route to a 57-25 record.

That team made it to the conference semifinals (and would have advanced further were it not for some David Stern chicanery), which gets us to the really encouraging news: 13 of the previous 14 times the Knicks have started with at least 32 wins in their first 50 games, they’ve made the East semis. The one exception was in 1954, when only three teams from each conference made the playoffs, and the “Eastern Division Finals” was decided by a round robin, which New York lost to Boston and Syracuse.

This year’s East is no picnic, but history bodes well for their chances nonetheless.

Play of the Day

I know the game didn’t end the way any of us would have liked, and that elusive double digit winning streak continues to evade us, but let’s never forget how lucky we are to witness an absolute master of his craft working at the peak of his powers.

The NBA is at its best when the talents of individual players coalesce into something greater for the larger group, but sometimes, individual brilliance is required to keep the train moving.

Right now, few NBA players if any are doing it better than Jalen Brunson.

💫 Stars of the Game 💫

⭐️ Deuce McBride: Played better than his 3-for-8 stat line, and even after a 1-for-4 night from downtown, he’s hitting 44.7 percent from long range on the year. You feel his impact on both ends when he checks in, even if he isn’t playing like a traditional point guard.

So why are the Knicks so hard pressed to make a move before the deadline? Because since the OG trade, New York has barely outscored opponents in the 299 minutes McBride has played, with a 103.0 offensive rating that is far worse than any other rotation player (Sims is at 107.0, but in only 138 minutes. Next worse is Grimes at 110.8).

That number has improved a bit in the last four games, in which McBride has gotten some time alongside Brunson, but at 106.0 it’s still the lowest among rotation players.

Long story short, for as good as McBride has been individually, the team continues to lag during his minutes. If the trade deadline results in a lost rotation spot, it might be the right move even if it would be an unpleasant one.

⭐️ ⭐️ Donte DiVincenzo: Since Julius Randle and OG Anunoby were sidelined, Donte DiVincenzo has had to step up his role in New York’s offense, and is now tasked with being the second option on a team with very lofty aspirations.

It hasn’t been perfect - his field goal percentage has dipped from 45.7 percent to 42.4 percent, while his 3-point percentage has fallen from 42.2 percent to 38.7 percent - but considering the massive increase in volume, those decreases are a drop in the bucket, and what he’s doing is downright unprecedented.

In these four games, DiVo has taken 92 total shots. That’s good for third most in the entire league over this time, trailing only Steph Curry at 106 and his college roommate Jalen Brunson with 108. In addition, DiVincenzo’s 62 attempts from deep are second in the league, trailing Steph by four and 16 ahead of Mikal Bridges in third. Other than Curry, only Dame, Harden and George McCloud have ever taken more threes in a four-game span than DDV’s 62.

Or just in the context of this season, Donte taken more threes in the last four games than in his first dozen as a Knick.

Even with that exponential leap in volume, DiVincenzo continues to punish defenses. After six makes in 16 attempts from behind the arc and 10 makes in 22 shots overall against Los Angeles, DiVincenzo now has 24 made threes in his last four games. The only other players in the last calendar year to equal or surpass that total over the same number of games are Curry, Trae Young, Damian Lillard and Klay Thompson. That’s the company DiVincenzo is keeping, even without Julius Randle there to soak up the defense’s attention.

Special stuff from a guy making less than the non-taxpayer midlevel exception.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Jalen Brunson: Every time I feel like I’m starting to run out of ways to properly encapsulate Jalen Brunson’s brilliance, something new pops up which makes me shake my head even more.

Today’s edition, inspired by the Play of the Day above, is about the level of greatness he’s been displaying in the short midrange.

The short midrange, which is the part of the paint that extends from the restricted area to the free throw line, is one of the few areas of the court that defenses can’t completely take away, not unless they want to open themselves up to worse damage elsewhere.

Well, since January 1st, Brunson is almost in a class by himself from this zone:

Brunson is taking more non-restricted area paint shots than any player in the league since the calendar flipped. Better yet, only one other player in the top 25 on that list - Nikola Jokic, perhaps you’ve heard of him - is hitting these shots at a higher clip. Extending our purview to the top 50, it’s just KAT, Vooch and the Joker that are nailing short middies more consistently than Jalen.

Those three players, notably, are seven-footers or whereabouts.

Brunson is…not.

The man continues to extend our definition of the impossible. He put up 36, 10 & 6 on Saturday, and it felt completely normal.

That’s where we’re at, 50 games into this incredible individual campaign.

Tip-Ins…

🏀 You can’t help but laugh at the NBA’s top-10 minutes per game leaders over the last four games heading into yesterday:

Well, unless you’re one of these four Knicks. Then you probably want to cry.

🏀 In non-Knicks news, Joel Embiid will undergo a surgical procedure on his knee that could sideline him for the rest of the season, but the recovery time won’t be known for sure until after the procedure is completed early this week.

Up Next…

The Knicks host the Memphis Grizzlies (or what’s left of them, at least) on Tuesday night.

Final Thought

It was magical while it lasted.

But fear not. The Knicks are still very good, if undermanned.

And they will get better.

Without an ounce of inside knowledge, I’d still bet anything they make a trade before Thursday at 3pm. Leon Rose has a conservative track record, but there’s no way he’s watching the effort these Knicks give every night, or the nightly brilliance of Jalen Brunson, and feel OK sitting tight at the deadline.

T-minus three days and counting.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”