Top 5 Post-All Star Questions

I ask (and answer) the biggest questions for the rest of the season.

Good morning, and apologies for the later than usual newsletter today. I’m on Florida time, it would seem.

Before we get to the All-Star game results, a quick note on the schedule for this week: there will be no newsletter tomorrow, but I’ll have special guest editions coming your way on Wednesday and Thursday before game recaps from me on both Friday and Saturday. Back to normal next week.

The All-Star game(s)…happened, apparently? Good for you if you tuned in. The interwebs tell me that Jalen Brunson did not win the 3-point contest and then scored three points for something called “Team Chuck” last night, while KAT scored six and eight points, respectively, in two games for “Team Shaq.” Neither took home the ultimate prize, which I can only assume was a bronzed toilet seat, because the latest idea to spice up All-Star weekend sure sounds like it should have been flushed.

Top 5 Post-All Star Questions

Coming out of the All-Star break, the 2024-25 New York Knicks are in unfamiliar territory.

In the Leon Rose era, every season before now has found a Knicks team with much at stake at this point in the year.

Last season, New York entered the break in fourth place, 1.5 games back of the Bucks, 0.5 games up on Philly, 2.5 games ahead of the sixth place Pacers and 3.0 games clear of the play-in. Because the Knicks were dealing with a rash of injuries and seventh place Miami had just acquired the theoretically helpful Terry Rozier, a playoff berth was anything but a certainty.

The year before, they sat in sixth place, 2.0 games back of the Nets in fifth and just 0.5 games ahead of those same pesky Heat.

Play-in hopes were barely on life support during the 2021-22 season, but the 12th place Knicks were still within 3.5 games of 10th, even after having lost 13 of 17 games going into the break.

And then way back in Thibs’ first season, before #We were really #Here, the Knicks were hanging onto fifth place at the break, 0.5 games behind Boston, 0.5 games ahead of Miami, and just 2.5 games ahead of an 11th place Hawks team that they would go on to face in the first round.

This year? With a 5.5-game lead on the fifth place Pacers and possession of the tiebreaker after last week’s road victory, the Knicks could go .500 the rest of the way and Indiana would still need to go 21-8 to pass them. Boston is an aspirational target with only a 2.5-game lead, but New York would realistically need to take both of their remaining games off the Celtics, who also happen to have the third easiest remaining schedule in the NBA.

It begs the question: What’s at stake over the final third of the season?

Here’s five things I’ll be looking for.

1. How will they integrate Mitchell Robinson?

Against my better judgment, I’m assuming we’ll actually see Robinson back on the court around March 1, which is when Shams recently reported Mitch was targeting for a return.

That would give the Knicks more than 20 games to figure out how best to deploy the longest tenured member of their team.

(Fun fact I’ve mentioned before but will update now: among players who have never made an All-Star team, only Myles Turner, Kevon Looney, Jamal Murray and Jonathan Isaac have been with their original teams for longer than Mitch, who is tied with Duncan Robinson and Anfernee Simons at seven seasons a pop. Among Knicks who joined the franchise since 2000, only Melo’s tenure has been as long.)

The most obvious answer is to use Robinson in an expanded version of the Hukporti role, taking all of the minutes Towns is on the bench and playing some minutes with KAT on the floor. Simply giving Thibs a reliable backup five should pay major dividends. Towns’ average of 34.6 minutes isn’t overly concerning, but he’s already played at least 38 minutes in a game 17 times this season - more than five times as many as last year. Having Mitch back will hopefully enable Thibodeau to give KAT the rest that he’d almost surely benefit from.

The better question is how many KAT/Mitch minutes we’re in store for. In four games since Hukporti entered the rotation, he and Towns have shared the court for 10 total minutes, and those groups have been great in a tiny sample size. Robinson is a far more proven commodity than Huk, and could give the Knicks a glimpse of what it might look like if they use KAT as a perimeter defender come playoff time.

But more Mitch minutes also might mean less minutes for Josh Hart, who is vitally important for countless reasons but whose positive impact begins to wane when he’s on the floor with another non-spacer (although KAT’s presence can help balance this out, as I discussed on Friday)

It’s not apples to apples, but for whatever its worth, the Towns/Gobert combo was Minnesota’s best heavy minute duo in the Wolves’ five-game loss to Dallas in the 2024 postseason.

2. Will a Knick make a charge up the MVP ranks?

I’m a sucker for NBA history, so this is probably more interesting to me than most, but New York currently has two players with a very real chance at a top-five MVP finish. That’s never been the case in my lifetime.

We won’t get both Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson among the top-five finishers, but there’s a great shot at one of them ending up in that lofty air.

How high can one of them get? The race is fairly wide open after Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic, especially with Giannis Antetokounmpo’s eligibility in doubt with his recent calf strain, leaving him six more missed games away from a failure to qualify. Jayson Tatum seems to have a leg up on third place, but after him it’s anyone’s game.

Donovan Mitchell has a great case for a place on the ballot, but I’d be surprised if a Knick doesn’t appear. Right now, it’s neck and neck between JB and KAT. Advanced stats like EPM and the Basketball Reference metrics have Towns in the lead, while the on/off data puts KAT comfortably ahead. Traditional statistics also favor the big man when you factor in his incredible across-the-board efficiency.

And yet…

Jalen Brunson leads the NBA in clutch points per minute among players who have played at least five minutes of clutch time. His efficiency in those spots trails only Nikola Jokic and Darius Garland among heavy-usage clutch players, and he already has a resume filled with late game heroics. When you factor in that this team’s biggest question remains KAT’s pick & roll defense, I’d have Jalen ever so slightly ahead.

3. Can they beat a big bad?

February 21, February 23, April 2, April 8 and April 11.

Those are the five dates remaining in which the Knicks will play the Cavs (three times) and Celtics (twice), and for many fans, the only games that matter.

There are other significant bouts - trips to Memphis, LA and Golden State, and a spicy late season matchup at home against potential first round opponent Detroit - but given how they’ve fared in recent losses to the Thunder and Celtics, these five could have an outsized importance.

Against Boston, we know all eyes will be focused on Karl-Anthony Towns at both ends. Can he punish mismatches when the Knicks have the ball, and can he put up more resistance than a sheet of moist tissue paper when Boston has it?

Against the Cavs, Towns’ ability to take advantage of switches will also be tested, but the bigger test may come on the other end. The first game between these teams was one of the worst offensive performances of Cleveland’s season, which currently has them on pace to be the best and most efficient offense in NBA history. That they’ve done it without grabbing many offensive rebounds and infrequently getting to the line makes the feat all the more impressive. Their 40 percent hit rate from downtown hasn’t subsided yet, so there’s no reason to think it will now.

Here’s the unfortunate part: Mitch isn’t likely to be back for either of the next two matchups, and its possible that playoff seeding will be fully locked up by April, so we may not get to see a game of real consequence where New York is at full strength until the postseason begins.

4. Will the Knicks start shooting threes again?

Before I get into this topic, I’ll preface it by saying there’s some good stuff surrounding New York’s 3-point profile. They remain a top-five team in 3-point percentage and are the eighth most frequent offense shooting from the corners, which are the highest value shots outside of the restricted area. Given how they’re also taking the fourth highest percentage of shots at the rim out of all 30 teams, it’s fair to assume that the threat of their long balls is opening up the offense in productive ways.

But overall, New York has plummeted to 27th in the league in 3-point frequency, which feels less than ideal going into potential playoff matchups with frequent fliers like the Cavs and Celts. They’ve been steadily trending downward over the course of the year, and it’s unclear what - or who - specifically is the problem.

By the numbers, Cleaning the Glass says that Deuce and Cam Payne are the most positively impactful players when it comes to their 3-point frequency (no surprise given how often those guys fire away from deep), while OG is the most positively impactful starter (which could just be a reflection of Precious Achiuwa being in the starting five when OG is out).

As for who has the most negative impact on their 3-point volume, you may be surprised to know that the answer is Jalen Brunson. When JB is on the court, New York takes 6.3 percent fewer threes than when he sits, which is in the fourth percentile league-wide.

I think some of that is simply the chuck-happy Payne (who almost always plays with the equally not-bashful McBride) being the flip side to this coin, but still, this is worth monitoring moving forward.

5. Can the defense pull it together?

Following Wednesday’s track meet, the Knicks are now 18th in the league in defense.

Let’s compare that to where they checked in at previous All-Star breaks under Thibs:

• ‘23-24: 9th

• ‘22-23: 15th

• ‘21-22: 17th

• ‘20-21: 2nd

Here’s how they did after the break in those same four seasons:

• ‘23-24: 10th

• ‘22-23: 18th

• ‘21-22: 1st

• ‘20-21: 3rd

In three of the last four seasons, the defense has stayed relatively stagnant, while in the disastrous ‘21-22 season, it skyrocketed up the ranks. Notably though, several of New York’s weaker defenders didn’t play all (or in Kemba’s case, any) minutes after the break that year, so this should probably be taken with a grain of salt.

So if incremental improvement can’t be counted on as a matter of course, should we expect a change?

The Mitch factor obviously looms large, especially considering the Knicks are currently giving up 2.2 more points per 100 possessions when KAT sits than when he plays. The defensive rating with Towns would be a top-12 number league-wide.

That’s all well and good, but watching Wednesday’s second half implosion against the Hawks and considering their 22nd ranked defense over the last 15 games, it’s hard to think things are trending in the right direction.

Is there a solution, other than hitting the “play better” button? If the focus remains how the Knicks will fare against Boston in the playoffs, perhaps the goal should be to implement more switching 1-5 regardless of the personnel in the game. I’d also like to see more experimentation with OG guarding fives than we’ve seen so far, but that may be an ace up the sleeve saved for spring basketball.

One cause for hope: New York is giving up the fourth fewest wide open threes by frequency and is league average in frequency of opposing open threes. Both of these numbers have gradually improved over the course of the season as they’ve been getting more disciplined in their coverages (albeit at the expense of close range shots, which the Knicks are now giving up at the sixth highest frequency in the NBA).

28 games left to figure it out.

All that’s at stake? A genuine run at a title.

No pressure or anything.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”