To Exploit or be Exploited? That is the Question...

Let's look back at what KAT could have done differently on Saturday night.

Good morning. We got an update of sorts on OG Anunoby - he’s listed as questionable for tonight’s 7:30 pm tipoff against Houston - but that doesn’t mean much when you consider he had the same injury designation ahead of last year’s trade deadline and ended up having surgery. I have more faith in my three-year-old when she has chocolate all over her face and she tells me she didn’t eat the cookie. As for Houston, Fred VanVleet and Jabari Smith are out while Alperen Sengun is questionable. Come join me at halftime.

One note before we get to today’s newsletter: it’s going to focus purely on the offensive end. New York’s defense - and KAT’s defense in particular - was dreadful on Saturday night. My read, given that multiple schemes fell flat on their face and no one was as attentive or engaged as they needed to be, is that the old “play better” adjustment would have gone a long way here. The offense is far more interesting to me, which is where I’m focusing today.

Game 49: Lakers 128, Knicks 112

Let’s start off today’s newsletter with a little reverse psychology…

I present to you my most encouraging play from Saturday night’s disappointing loss to to the Los Angeles Lakers:

Not exactly what you were expecting!

My logic is simple. This is a pass KAT has made dozens upon dozens of times this year alone, usually with pinpoint accuracy. The fact that OG so easily leaves his man in the dust (nice screen, Jalen!) made this one of Towns’ easier assist opportunities of the season…and he nearly threw it into the third row.

Midway through the first quarter, this pass should have told us loud and clear that this was not going to be Karl-Anthony Towns’ night. For that reason, I’m choosing to take everything we saw afterwards with several grains of salt.

(Should we extrapolate from this that his thumb is bothering him far more than we realize? That he shrunk under the bright lights of an ABC game game against LeBron? That Draymond’s comments really got under his skin? Let’s hope the answer is choice d) none of the above / everyone deserves to have an off night.)

Some more rationalizing: New York’s continuing struggle to exploit teams who put a little guy on Towns and dare him to beat them is a great problem to have. The hardest thing in the NBA is to get an opponent to abandon their preferred method of defense and resort to stuff like this in an effort to muck things up. From that perspective, mission accomplished. Towns is still a matchup nightmare for anyone who tries to play him with traditional coverage, and it’s not like the Knicks haven’t been able to turn this strategy on its head either.

Watch this play, for instance, midway through the first quarter:

Once the Lakers switch Austin Reaves onto Towns, Josh Hart’s man immediately shades over to help. Hart, being the smarty farty that he is, wastes no time flashing middle as a perfectly placed outlet. Better yet, after he gets the ball, he eyes a pass to Towns that gets his defender in the air, and then promptly dusts him for a layup.

KAT didn’t even touch the ball on this possession but his gravity was largely responsible for this bucket happening.

Compare that with a possession later in the first quarter, where Towns got the rock while being covered by rookie Dalton Knecht, who had just checked into the game:

Off the bat, I want to point out that there were nine seconds remaining on the clock here, meaning there was no excuse for KAT to take this shot. The fact that he did tells me quite clearly that LA’s defensive game plan was on his mind.

Up until this point, Towns hadn’t attempted a single field goal. My guess is that he got antsy and was determined to make them pay for their disrespect. Unfortunately, this played right into their hands.

Let’s take a closer look at what else he could have done:

LA is in perfect position here, but the Knicks do him no favors, part of which has to do with personnel. Instead of human whirligig Josh Hart on the floor, New York has Precious Achiuwa out there, who too often this season and in this game especially was content to hang out in the corner. Meanwhile, Deuce is too far on the other side of the court for a direct pass. With LA showing help, Towns decided against posting up, even though a more methodical approach and more movement from his teammates may have led to something better.

Here’s Towns’ next shot attempt, from early in the second when he was on the floor with OG and three bench players:

Again, KAT takes a high degree of difficulty shot with two defenders guarding him. The reason why, to me, is all about timing.

On the surface, Precious Achiuwa cutting to the middle mucks up the spacing and gives the Lakers an opportunity to put two on the ball without any real repercussions. Again though, there were eight seconds left on the clock here. You see Deuce starting to rotate over to the top of the arc, with OG ready to occupy McBride’s spot at the free throw line extended. If Precious is putting pressure on the rim in that alignment, it gives the Lakers something to think about, but Towns was in too much of a rush.

There’s no way for me to look up how many minutes KAT has played against this sort of a defense without Brunson on the court this season, but I can’t imagine it’s been too many. The hope has to be that with more time will come better decisions.

Low and behold, his very next shot attempt was a quality one:

The only difference between this and the possession two clips above this is that LA wasn’t able to force KAT baseline, and his ultra-quick first dribble was all that it took for him to get a good attempt at the rim.

On his next attempt though, the Lakers again did a great job muddying the waters, and Towns again let them off the hook:

LA brings the double by blatantly ignoring Precious in the corner, which is to be expected. Should Achiuwa already be under the rim to give Towns an easy outlet? Maybe, but the baseline cut does accomplish something by drawing LeBron’s attention. Seeing this, OG then cuts to bring yet another defender in, which leaves Deuce all by his lonesome behind the arc.

Simply put, Towns needs to make one of two passes, either hitting a cutting Anunoby or going over the top to McBride behind the 3-point line:

I don’t want to pile on Towns too much. A few plays later, he hit Mikal perfectly on a cut to the rim, only for Bridges to blow what should have been an automatic layup attempt. It was one of several instances of the Knicks missing makable shots at or around the rim.

That includes a miss a little later in the quarter from Towns himself, with a wide open Bridges in the corner:

Again: the Knicks had plenty of opportunities to exploit the Lakers’ coverage of Towns. They just didn’t take full advantage of what they were given.

It’s not because Towns is selfish. We’ve already seen enough to know that’s not true. If anything, he could stand to be more assertive earlier in games rather than easing into the action.

I think it’s something different. When momentum is heading the wrong way, it can be really hard for KAT to recalibrate and make a U-turn in the other direction. Not long after the above possession, Towns was in no mood to wait for LA’s defense to get set, and it resulted in an easy charge call for the official:

Less than a minute later, Hart hit Towns on a fast break with KAT just outside the restricted area and only Austin Reaves between him and the hoop. Towns rushed a baby hook as other Laker defenders rushed to get back in the play. We weren’t yet out of the second quarter and KAT was already in his own head.

If you’re noticing a common thread in all of these possessions, it’s that Precious Achiuwa is on the floor being completely ignored by a Laker defender. Towns wasn’t the only one hurt by this reality, as we saw on a possession late in the half where Reaves completely abandoned the corner to swipe the ball from an unsuspecting Jalen Brunson:

For the season, the offensive numbers with KAT and Precious on the floor at the same time are good, but there’s a funny quirk about those numbers if we dig a little deeper.

On the surface, you’d think that if Towns and Achiuwa are on the court together, Josh Hart should be on the bench. After all, why add a second perimeter player who defenses will ignore behind the arc?

And yet, when the KAT/Precious combo plays without Hart, New York is scoring a more pedestrian 116.0 points per 100 possessions according to Cleaning the Glass. When they play with Hart, that number goes up to 132.0.

A play from the end of the second quarter shows why:

Watch Hart bobbing around here, threatening to cut, pulling back, and then ducking in again. That little dance is enough to confuse Reaves and allow Achiuwa the chance to duck in. A little patience goes a long way, and often times, Hart’s activity level more than makes up for his lack of shooting.

The same patient approach was not on display on New York’s very next possession, when Towns attempted a side-step / step-back corner three over DFS in what may be the most absurd shot attempt by a Knick this entire season.

There were a few more Towns shooting possessions in the second half, all of which were more of the same: poor decisions compounded by LA’s ability to ignore Precious Achiuwa on the perimeter.

I’ll end this where I started it. Karl-Anthony Towns has been positively awesome this season, and is a deserving All-Star starter and MVP candidate. He has been New York’s most important player, and the biggest reason why they are a top-five team, but on Saturday night, he was bad.

I trust that he will be better. The bigger question is how the Knicks will navigate the possible extended absence of OG Anunoby. With that, I’ll end on a high note: in an admittedly irrelevant sample size of 85 possessions, when McBride plays in place of OG with the other four starters, New York is outscoring teams by 14.9 points per 100 possessions.

I’ll take a silver lining anywhere I can get one right now.

💫 Stars of the Game 💫

⭐️ Precious Achiuwa: Am I going to penalize him for being the source of so many offensive issues? Or praise him for doing his job as well as can be expected, with a 15 & 15 stat line to go with a far better defensive effort than anything KAT put forth? The lack of a quality game from anyone else (outside of OG, who played just 17 minutes) makes the decision easier.

⭐️ ⭐️ Deuce McBride: After scoring a dozen points on Saturday, Deuce has now reached double figures in three straight games while shooting 48.4 percent from the field and 36.8 percent from deep. He seems back to his pre-injury self.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Josh Hart: 26 points, 13 rebounds, 11 assists and two steals, and the numbers don’t do his performance justice. Easily the best Knick in this game.

Final Thought

Please be OK, OG.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”