Everybody Eats

Is there such a thing as too many mouths to feed?

Good morning. New York is back in action tonight against the Memphis Grizzlies. Santi Aldama and Jake LaRavia are questionable while Marcus Smart is out. For the Knicks, Josh Hart is listed as questionable, but we know what that means. I’ll be on halftime, so come say hi.

Game 46: Knicks 143, Kings 120

• Sacramento never found an answer for New York’s offensive attack, which had its second highest point total and assist total (40) of the season.

• OG Anunoby (33 points, 4-of-7 from 3), Mikal Bridges (27 points, 5-of-7 from 3) and Jalen Brunson (25 points, 4-of-6) all found the range, while Josh Hart (20 points, 18 rebounds, 11 assists) filled up the stat sheet.

• The Kings nearly erased an early 19-point hole by getting out in transition and spamming the Monk / Sabonis pick and roll, but the Knicks adjusted after halftime, thanks in part to an extended stretch with the quicker Precious Achiuwa

• Landry Shamet was first off the bench, nailing three 3-pointers in the first quarter.

• Brunson became the fastest Knick to score 5,000 points, passing Carmelo Anthony and Bernard King by one game.

The Secret of Basketball.

It was a phrase made famous by Bill Simmons in 2009, back when his fingers still worked, serving as the theme of his second text, The Book of Basketball.

Simmons never gives us a hard and fast definition of “the secret,” but it is stooped in the concept of unselfishness, evoking a togetherness that goes beyond the hardwood. There are several great lines in the book about the secret (including from the memorable hot tub opener featuring former Knicks GM Isiah Thomas), but one quote that always resonated with me came from someone who played on the team that exemplified the secret at its finest - none other than Friend of the KFS Pod, Senator Bill Bradley:

“A team championship exposes the limits of self-reliance, selfishness and irresponsibility. One man alone can’t make it happen; in fact, the contrary is true: a single man can prevent it from happening. The success of the group assures the success of the individual, but not the other way around…It is a sport where success, as symbolized by the championship, requires that the dictates of the community prevail over selfish personal impulses. An exceptional player is simply one point on a five-pointed star.”

Bradley was spot on when he said that the success of the group assures the success of the individual. With the induction of Dr. Dick Barnett this past fall, all five members of both the 1969-70 and 1972-73 New York Knicks starting lineups are now enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame. Where so many other teams failed, those Knicks achieved basketball immortality through their selflessness.

Not that they weren’t incredibly talented. Every one of those Hall-of-Famers could fill up the stat sheet on any given night, including in a game 56 years ago when all five starters scored at least 20 points on the same night.

(Those five - Bradley, Barnett, Willis Reed, Dave DeBusschere and Walt Frazier - played 201 of a possible 240 minutes that evening in Game 82 of the regular season. Thankfully for Red Holzman, the Minutes Police were but a gleam in their father’s eye.)

The current crop of Knicks were a Karl-Anthony Towns’ made field goal away from equalling the achievement of their predecessors on Saturday at MSG. KAT scored 18, while the rest of his starting brethren all reached the 20-point mark. The leading point-getter among them, for just the fourth time this season and the first time in exactly two months, was OG Anunoby, who finished with 33 points on a scintillating 12-of-18 shooting display.

Following the game, when FOTP Bill Pidto asked Anunoby if he had shifted to a more aggressive approach lately after scoring 17 or more in four of his last five outings, OG’s answer was telling:

…we have a great team, so it’s hard to figure it out…

You get where Anunoby is coming from. In his mind, “a great team” is synonymous with many great players, which means more mouths to feed. It’s an understandable pickle, and he’s not wrong about part of it: the Knicks have several really good basketball players.

On Thursday night, two of them were named starters for the 74th annual All-Star Game. The last time that happened, Tom Thibodeau was busy applying to college, Leon Rose was trying to pick a high school, and Rick Brunson was still in diapers. Josh Hart, meanwhile, has a legitimate case to make the All-Star team as a reserve, as I’ll get to in a bit. Mikal Bridges was just acquired for a KD-sized pick package, while Anunoby recently signed the largest contract in franchise history.

There is arguably no more talented starting five in basketball. More than that, each player’s strengths fit with one another like perfectly cut puzzle pieces to create a dynamic whole. Towns had one of his least efficient games of the season and New York still put up 143 on a team that had won 10 of 12, in part due to the seventh best defense in the league over that time.

They did it by embodying Bradley’s words. The dictates of the community prevailed, resulting in 40 assists on 52 made field goals. This franchise went nearly 34 years without dishing at least 40 assists in a single game. They have now done it twice in the span of four months. It was also their 18th game with at least 30 assists this season, equaling their total from the last two seasons combined. By the numbers, they are anything but an unselfish team.

And yet, after hearing Anunoby’s words, one wonders…

Have they found the secret?

Very few teams reach that loftiest of plains. My personal favorite example was the 2014 Spurs. Their leading scorer, Tony Parker, averaged 16.7 points a night - barely more than Anunoby, who is fourth of the totem poll in New York. Their most talented scorer, Manu Ginóbili, yet again came off the bench for the betterment of his team. And Tim Duncan, inarguably one of the 10 greatest players ever, scored in single digits 11 times that season. He was still plenty capable of getting 40 any night he pleased, but only topped 30 once.

Why?

Because the dictates of the community demanded it.

For all their offensive exploits, these Knicks haven’t yet attained basketball nirvana like those Spurs. Their path to that destination has been smooth in some ways (see: the second best offense in the NBA, the best passing stats in a generation, some positively beautiful basketball, etc.), but rocky in others. Defensively, it remains a work in progress, as Malik Monk and Domantas Sabonis reminded us in the second quarter on Saturday night. Switching defenses still give them fits.

More than anything though, OG’s comments, along with Josh Hart’s now overplayed talk of egos and agendas, reveals that the secret still eludes them.

OG is right - the Knicks do have a great team - and because they do, feeling like a valuable piece of the offense should be easier to figure out, not harder.

Not that he’s to blame. Everything these players are taught from the age they can first dribble a ball points them to the idea that scoring equates to value. Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James…bucket getters, all of them. That’s what warrants attention. If Josh Hart scored 20 a game instead of 14, even if he came about those points less efficiently, he’d be a far more likely All-Star candidate. Eradicating this mindset is no easy task.

But it is a necessary one, and perhaps the last hurdle the Knicks need to overcome. Saturday was the latest piece of evidence that they have what it takes to get there. Now it comes down to consistency, and turning that process into second nature.

If they figure that out (and, yes, not have many more half-quarter long brain farts trying to guard the most fundamental of basketball actions), there is no ceiling on what they can achieve.

One point on a five-pointed star. That’s all any of them need to be.

If only it were that simple.

💫 Stars of the Game 💫

⭐️ Jalen Brunson: By a hair over Mikal Bridges, Landry Shamet (welcome to the party, sir!) and Precious Achiuwa (more of that defensive activity, please). Bridges was more efficient and quite impactful on defense (did you enjoy your trip to the Garden, Mr. Fox?), but Brunson’s gravity warped the Sacramento defense to the point that it was unrecognizable from the formidable force of the previous dozen games.

⭐️ ⭐️ Josh Hart: Before Saturday, the list of players to put up a 20, 18 & 11 stat line in a regulation game this season consisted of one name: Nikola Jokic. Now, the three-time MVP has company.

So…does that mean Hart has a real All-Star case?

Out of seven Eastern Conference reserve spots, Cade Cunningham and Evan Mobley are the only automatic entries. Jaylen Brown is having the least efficient season of his career, the advanced stats hate him yet again, and the numbers say Boston is better without him, but he’s averaging 23 points for the 32-14 Celtics. There’s probably a case for him not to be on the team, but I’m not going to make it here. Darius Garland is arguably having a better season than his backcourt counterpart, and Cleveland is still running away with the East, so he gets in as well.

That leaves three spots. Milwaukee putting it together enough to be fourth in the East is probably enough for Dame to get one of the three. He’s been incredibly efficient on high usage. He’s deserving.

That leaves two, with one front court spot and one wild card spot up for grabs. The contenders, in no particular order: Pascal Siakam, Tyler Herro, Zach LaVine, LaMelo Ball, Trae Young, Jalen Johnson, Tyrese Haliburton, Tyrese Maxey, Derrick White and Hart. If you go by Basketball Reference’s trio of advanced stats, Hart is tops among this group in Win Shares (where he ranks sixth in the NBA) and Value Over Replacement Player (11th), while he trails Ball and Haliburton in Box Plus Minus. He trails just Hali and Siakam in Estimated Wins Added via Dunks & Threes.

But are coaches really going to grant an All-Star nod to someone with a lower usage rate than Kyshawn George?

That depends on if they believe in the secret of basketball.

Give me Hart and Siakam.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ OG Anunoby: What, you thought I was anti-Anunoby all of the sudden?

This might sound counterintuitive to everything I wrote above, but I’m encouraged by OG’s post-game comments. Too often, he is too much of a bystander, and for him as much as anyone on the team, willingness to fail is a huge part of their offensive success. If there really is a secret to basketball, attaining it isn’t a linear process. Instead its a series of fits and starts, push and pull, trial and error, and figuring out the proper balance to attain equilibrium.

On Saturday night, OG Anunoby took a big step forward in that respect, and with him, so did the Knicks. The other four New York starters are equally gifted at initiating plays as they are at finishing them, whereby Anunoby’s strong suit is undoubtedly finishing.

That means it’s on OG’s teammates to swing the 6'7", 235-pound hammer so it can inflict maximum damage. They did that on Saturday, assisting on 10 of his 12 made field goals, with two put-backs on offensive rebounds the only exceptions.

And that - plus another night of near shutdown defense - was more than enough to earn him top honors today.

Final Thought

Don’t look now but the Knicks have won three in a row. The next four games - against the Grizzlies, Nuggets, Lakers and Rockets - will tell us a whole lot about where the Knicks are at.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”