KAT Back

After a one-game absence, Karl-Anthony Towns will join the Knicks out West. Plus, I answer your questions in today's mailbag.

Good morning! Some good news as the Knicks embark on their five-game West coast trip:

We still don’t know what caused Towns to miss the game on Tuesday, but hopefully whatever it was is better now. There are some Knicks on the injury report though, as OG Anunoby (left thumb sprain), Mitchell Robinson (ankle recovery) and Precious Achiuwa (hamstring) are all questionable. For the Lakers, Luka, LeBron and Autin Reaves are probable while Rui Hachimura is out. Tip off is at 10pm on TNT. Night owls, come say hi at halftime.

A Thursday Mailbag

With the team about to head out West for what promises to be a very interesting five-game trip, what better time to see what’s on readers’ minds.

We start off with a coaching question from Perry that isn’t as immediately relevant as it was before the KAT news but still bears discussing because of the big picture implications:

With KAT potentially not playing in LA and with the Lakers frequently going small due to a lack of adequate center talent, O/U 0.5 minutes of OG at the 5? Relatedly, how many minutes would you allocate to this lineup in this scenario?

Towns seems like he’ll play, but even if he wasn’t, I’d have gone with the under.

To explain why, we have to travel to the depths of Tom Thibodeau’s most fundamental of basketball beliefs. You’ll recall that before the season, we saw a photo from the Knicks’ practice facility that detailed the core beliefs of their team:

The top block is what’s relevant here, and I’d argue so is the order. The very first bullet points are “defend” and “rebound.” I’ll bet you a doughnut that those are the same two things Thibodeau believes suffer the most when you go small.

And to some extent, he’s right. Through five years of Thibs’ tenure, there are exactly two statistics in which the Knicks have ranked in the top 12 league-wide: defensive rebounding (12th, 4th, 11th, 5th, and 11th this season, according to Cleaning the Glass) and opponents’ accuracy in the restricted area (1st, 5th, 4th, 7th and 7th currently).

There are more aspects to playing good defense than limiting teams at the rim, but we have more than enough of a sample size to know that in Thibodeau’s mind, you cannot have a strong defense if opponents’ feel unbothered at the basket.

And yet…despite playing 45.5 minutes with traditional centers on Tuesday night, 22 of Golden State’s 43 field goals (more than half!) came from within 0-2 feet of the hoop. There was even one stretch in the third quarter when five consecutive Warrior hoops had a shot distance of zero feet:

Obviously I’m a huge Thibs proponent and I guarantee you that if you asked him about these numbers and whether they warrant giving more time to smaller lineups, he’d give the same answer he’s given anytime he’s been asked about a scheme change over the course of his career: only when the effort and execution are both there and it still isn’t working should there be a change. On Tuesday night, they certainly didn’t execute to a passable degree, and the effort wasn’t at Golden State’s level to start the third quarter.

That stubbornness is both Thibodeau’s best and worst quality, and to his credit, his Knick teams have usually coalesced defensively as the season has gone along.

But we’re now 61 games in and the same errors from week one are still happening, as I detailed on Monday. For that reason, and because it seems obvious that OG at the five is a pivot they’d be wise to go to during a potential playoff matchup with Boston, I’d probably give that unit a look at some point over the next 21 games.

Big picture, this entire discussion is just another reason why, for all that’s at stake over the rest of this season, the decision on whether Thibs is the right coach to take this group forward is under as big a microscope as anything.

Next up, a question from Calhoun Coach K:

With so much defensive inconsistency, I am finding it harder and harder to believe that switching Brunson onto the ball would yield worse results. Will Thibs ever change course?