The Winning Formula
One of our readers has inadvertently unlocked the Knicks' key to victory.
Good morning! New York heads to Washington tonight for a 7pm tip. Mitch and Deuce are out for the Knicks. The Wizards are tanking. Let’s please make this seven in a row.
Oh, and it’s all quiet on the Giannis front, if you still care about that sort of thing.
The Winning Formula
In the midst of four games in six days, we got an interesting comment to yesterday’s newsletter courtesy of my guy Chris Dayton:
KAT, JB & Mikal combined for 33 points on 14 for 38 shooting in this 12-point win over a pretty good team. They overcame those offensive performances because everyone was engaged and making multiple efforts on defense. They had six guys in double figures, dished out 30 assists, and had 14 offensive rebounds. It would be interesting to know their record when they have five of more players in double figures, at least 25 assists, and 12 or more offensive boards.
I love this comment Chris, because it’s usually right around this time of year when I start looking for statistical trends that correlate with wins. Sometimes its as simple as being good or bad in a particular stat category1. Sometimes it might be how a given player performs.
Or, as in Chris’ comment, it’s a particular combination of data points that correlate with the anecdotal evidence we’ve obtained from watching this team for nearly 50 games. When the Knicks win, the ball is often moving freely on offense, which leads to both balanced scoring and high assists. Assists are a tricky statistic to assess, because while they can certainly be a sign of ample ball movement, they also go up when guys simply hit shots.
For example, Luka made a bunch of good passes on Sunday night, only to see those looks get bricked. Sure enough, he had 17 “potential” assists but only eight actual assists.
Just as notably though, Jalen Brunson’s season high 13 assists weren’t just the result hot shooting from the recipients of those passes. He had 21 “potential” assists, which is nearly 10 more than his season-long average of 11.5.
