Walking Wounded

The Knicks will turn to a rookie to lead them at point guard tonight.

Good morning all.

First and foremost, congrats to the Knicks, who clinched a playoff birth last night by virtue of Atlanta’s loss to Miami. I know we have bigger fish to fry, but there will never be a day that I take making the playoffs for granted. Well done.

On the downside, we got the injury news for tonight’s bout with the Bucks, and it’s not great. In addition to Jalen Brunson, Deuce McBride and Cam Payne will also be missing in action. Presumably, this means Tyler Kolek will get his first career start, although I suppose other options are available. We’ll find out tonight at 8. For the Bucks, Damian Lillard is out while Giannis Antetokounmpo is questionable. No halftime for me, but come out to T2 Social to say hello at our watch party, kicking off at 7pm.

Hope to see everyone there.

Friday Mailbag

Happy Friday all. We’re coming down the home stretch with much on the minds of Knicks fans. As good a time for a reader mailbag as any.

As always, I tried to get to as many questions as I could, but if I didn’t get to yours, please submit again next time and I’ll do my best.

We start with a timely topic from Dom Da Dentist:

If everyone’s healthy, what’s your ideal playoff rotation - starters, closers and minutes played - against Milwaukee vs against Detroit.

My rotation wouldn’t change regardless of the opponent. I’m going eight men, with the five current starters plus Deuce, Mitch and Cam Payne, with Payne limited to about 10 minutes a game.

From New York’s perspective, the biggest rotation question would seem to involve Josh Hart, and how much his presence hurts New York on the offensive end. The funny thing there is that Hart has been the Knicks’ best on/off guy when it comes to offensive rating since the All-Star break, when his struggles have stood out the most. With Hart on the floor, New York is scoring 114.4 points per 100 possessions, while they’re only generating a 101.8 rating without him.

I’d love nothing more than to stick my head in the sand and wish away Hart’s issues based on these numbers, but I have eyes like the rest of you. Aside from his hesitancy occasionally hamstringing New York’s offense, his months-long downturn in efficiency has been just as notable if quieter:

courtesy of Cleaning the Glass

But those on/off numbers do exist, and while they’re certainly due in part to some small(ish) sample size noise, there are also times when Hart can be a significant driver of offense even if he isn’t a willing outside shooter. If either Detroit or Milwaukee attempts to slot their starting center on Hart and he’s playing with confidence, he’s savvy enough to exploit that decision.

For that reason, I’d keep the starting five as is until further notice, but be ready to adjust as needed. Between the two teams, I’d sooner expect a pivot from Hart to Deuce to come against the Pistons for two reasons. For one, McBride’s speed and peskiness should come in handy against a Detroit team that will look to bring Jalen Brunson into every action, likely resulting in the need for pinpoint rotations as the Knicks do everything in their power to avoid switching Jalen onto Cade Cunningham. Second, the Pistons have a few potential non-center options to try on Towns in Tobias Harris and Ausar Thompson. Replacing Deuce with Hart makes this strategy much less tenable.

The other major variable here involves Mitchell Robinson, as the Cunningham pick & roll is Detroit’s bread and butter, with only Trae Young finishing more plays per game as the pick & roll ball-handler than Cade. We’ve already seen the Pistons gash Towns on these plays, and Robinson might be the elixir to that problem.

But this, in turn, brings us right back to Hart, and the difficulties that come with two non-shooters on the floor at once. Hart, Mitch and KAT have only shared the floor for 13 non-garbage time possessions this season, so its not like we have a great idea of how this looks. Of course, if the goal is to minimize the Hart/Mitch minutes, then swapping out Hart for Deuce in the starting lineup only makes that task more difficult.

For that and several other reasons, I’d be surprised if we ever got a change to the first five, and I think that’s the right call - for this season at least. If anything, a shorter leash might be called for, but that feels like a mid-series adjustment and not one out of the gate.

Fearless prediction: if we ever get something other than the starting five on the floor to close a tight game, I predict Deuce for Hart as the third most likely pivot behind Deuce for Mikal and Mitch for KAT.