What’s Luck Got To Do With It?

Is the Knicks' 3-point defense bad? Or just unlucky? I examine some recent history to find the answer.

Good morning, and Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day. As you know, I’ve signed off every newsletter with a quote from Dr. King for some time now. I don’t think I’m saying anything controversial by suggesting that his hopes and ideals are more relevant now than ever. As our society often seems more splintered than ever, I hope we can all take a page from Dr. King’s book and open our hearts to someone today, preferably someone who we may not usually see eye to eye with. You never know what it might lead to.

As for the local basketball team, they play at 3pm against the Atlanta Hawks. With news of KAT and Josh Hart being full participants in practice yesterday, both teams should be fully healthy with the exception of Zaccharie Risacher for the Hawks. I’ll be on halftime, so come say hi.

What’s Luck Got To Do With It?

Is it better to be lucky or good?

This was a question we had to ask ourselves often during Tom Thibodeau’s first season as Knicks head coach.

That year, New York sported the lowest opponents’ 3-point percentage in the NBA, as teams hit just 33.8 percent of their long balls against the Knicks. Combined with the lowest opposing field goal percentage at the rim, New York’s inside out dominance helped them finish as the league’s fourth best defense.

All season long, NBA pundits wondered when the fairy tale was going to end. After all, the Knicks gave up the sixth highest frequency of wide open threes¹ in the league and the 12th highest frequency of open threes². That the teams they played only made those wide open looks at a 34.7 percent clip (second lowest behind the Jazz) and the open ones at a 34.1 percent rate (fourth lowest) wasn’t due to anything they were doing. Surely, the glass slipper was bound to come off eventually.

In the playoffs, it did…sort of.

The Atlanta Hawks wound up nailing 36 percent of their looks from behind the arc, which was below their average mark of 37.3 percent but middle of the pack for the playoffs as a whole. On open threes, they shot a miserable 31.9 percent, but on wide open looks, they scorched the nets at a 40.9 percent clip. That was especially problematic given how the Knicks gave up the second highest frequency of wide open deep balls out of the 16-team playoff field.

None of this got analyzed very much because all the focus was on New York’s Julius-centric offense turning into a pumpkin, but the fact remains the Knicks’ luck evened out.

The following season, New York again gave up a hefty amount of wide open threes (fourth most) and open threes (eighth most), and again they got pretty lucky. They were fourth stingiest in opponents’ 3-point hit rate, ranking in the middle of the pack in the opposing hit rate on wide-open threes but first overall in opponents’ accuracy on open threes. Unfortunately, we couldn’t put the good/lucky theory to a second playoff test because the Knicks didn’t make the postseason.

The last two years, New York has steadily descended the rankings for make-rate of opposing 3-point field goals, coming in 11th in the ‘22-23 season and 17th last year. This season, following Minnesota’s scorching visit to the Garden on Friday night, only one team - the lowly Nets - are allowing teams to make a higher percentage of their 3-pointers than the Knicks.

Which makes me wonder the inverse of the above question: is it worse to be unlucky, or bad?

Right now, it’s tempting to say the Knicks are both, but the numbers don’t quite bear that out. Across the NBA, only six teams give up a lower frequency of wide open opposing threes than the Knicks. The numbers aren’t quite as good in open threes - they’re 13th worst - but still, for a team second from the bottom in opponents’ hit rate on all 3-pointers, that data is nowhere near as bad as you’d expect (the Nets, for example, are ninth worst in both categories).

At this point, no one is disputing that the Knicks need to improve their 3-point defense, even if their preferred style of play is keeping them afloat in other areas, which is why, despite this major issue, they’re still a middle of the pack defense overall.

The hope is that things will get better, and that the very correctable mistakes I detailed on Saturday and that Benjy and DJ expounded upon over the weekend will be fixed.

But let’s say they don’t. Will that, by itself, spell certain doom for the Knicks in the postseason? To help answer that question, I went through eight recent playoff teams that had similar struggles to New York in the regular season³ and checked in on how they did in the playoffs⁴. Here’s what I found, starting with the most recent:

2023-24 Lakers

• 24th in opponents’ 3-point percentage during the regular season

• 24th in opponents’ 3-point frequency during the regular season

• 3rd highest frequency of wide-open threes allowed during the regular season

• 2nd lowest frequency of open threes allowed during the regular season

PLAYOFFS: 2nd lowest opponents’ 3-point accuracy, 7th lowest opponents’ 3-point frequency

I don’t know what voodoo the Lakers employed before the start of last season’s first round series with the Nuggets, but Denver couldn’t buy a basket against them all series. Unfortunately for LA, it didn’t matter, as the Nuggets still vanquished them in five games despite hitting less than 31 percent of their looks from downtown. That the Nugs were the 10th best 3-point shooting team in the regular season made this even more surprising.

Regardless, ‘23-24 LA doesn’t really match up with New York’s statistical profile in that they gave up a ton of wide open looks and a high frequency of threes in general.

2022-23 Kings

• 26th in opponents’ 3-point percentage during the regular season

• 14th in opponents’ 3-point frequency during the regular season

• 3rd lowest frequency of wide-open threes allowed during the regular season

• 11th highest frequency of open threes allowed during the regular season

PLAYOFFS: 8th lowest opponents’ 3-point accuracy, worst opponents’ 3-point frequency

This is the recent team that most closely matches New York’s current 3-point defensive profile. Opponents hit a high percentage of their threes against the ‘22-23 Kings even though Sacramento gave up very few wide open looks and were in the top half of the league in limiting the overall frequency of opponents’ threes (the Knicks are currently 11th in that stat, better than Sacto’s 14th place ranking).

Some good news: even though Sacramento lost to Warriors in a close seven-game series, they did a pretty good job in limiting Golden State to 33.3 percent hit rate on threes, good for middle of the pack in the postseason. The problem came in how often the Warriors let the bombs fly. No team int he 2023 playoffs gave up opposing threes at a higher frequency than Sacramento, who allowed the defending champs to attempt over 41 percent of their shots from behind the arc.

It’s also worth noting that the Kings’ regular season was quite poor, ranking 24th in the NBA (New York is 16th). Whereas the Knicks have been able to limit teams in some key areas, those Kings had trouble taking much of anything away.

2022-23 Cavs

• 25th in opponents’ 3-point percentage during the regular season

• 6th in opponents’ 3-point frequency during the regular season

• Lowest frequency of wide-open threes allowed during the regular season

• 17th highest frequency of open threes allowed during the regular season

PLAYOFFS: Lowest opponents’ 3-point accuracy, 5th lowest opponents’ 3-point frequency

Memories, memories…

If I was a Cavs fan who saw these numbers, I might vomit.

After getting wildly unlucky during a regular season in which no team held their opponents to a lower rate of wide open threes and only five teams held opponents’ to a lower frequency of threes overall, Cleveland had every right to believe that luck would shine upon them in the postseason.

And they were right! The Knicks couldn’t hit the far side of a barn in the first round and didn’t even bother getting many threes up, taking less than a third of their shots from behind the arc overall.

It didn’t matter. New York dominated the offensive glass and stole Cleveland’s soul in the process, eventually costing J.B. Bickerstaff his job. Still, the league’s number one regular season defense had legitimate reasons to be confident heading into the playoffs, and they weren’t totally off base.

Not sure this is comparable with the ‘24-25 Knicks in any way.

2021-22 Bulls

• 27th in opponents’ 3-point percentage during the regular season

• 2nd in opponents’ 3-point frequency during the regular season

• 2nd lowest frequency of wide-open threes allowed during the regular season

• 8th lowest frequency of open threes allowed during the regular season

PLAYOFFS: 3rd highest opponents’ 3-point accuracy, 8th lowest opponents’ 3-point frequency

I don’t know how much this sample size really matters because Lonzo Ball’s midseason injury turned Chicago from a somewhat formidable defensive force into a shell of its former self. Still, this was a team that specialized in taking away regular season threes and still allowed a very high percentage of makes. Sure enough, the Bucks lit them up like an ugly Christmas sweater in the first round.

2021-22 Hawks

• 26th in opponents’ 3-point percentage during the regular season

• 17th in opponents’ 3-point frequency during the regular season

• 14th lowest frequency of wide-open threes allowed during the regular season

• 9th highest frequency of open threes allowed during the regular season

PLAYOFFS: 7th lowest opponents’ 3-point accuracy, 4th lowest opponents’ 3-point frequency

Like the ‘22-23 Kings above, Atlanta’s defense in the 2021-22 season was quite poor overall, ranking 26th in the NBA. It was far too much for their second ranked offense to overcome, and the top-ranked Heat easily dispensed with them in five games in the first round. Even though their opposing 3-point luck evened out a bit, it didn’t matter.

2021-22 Pelicans

• 25th in opponents’ 3-point percentage during the regular season

• 23rd in opponents’ 3-point frequency during the regular season

• 12th highest frequency of wide-open threes allowed during the regular season

• 6th highest frequency of open threes allowed during the regular season

PLAYOFFS: 3rd lowest opponents’ 3-point accuracy, 4th lowest opponents’ 3-point frequency

Perhaps no team on this list brought a worse 3-point defensive profile into the postseason than the ‘21-22 Pels, who earned their way into the playoffs after beating the Spurs and Clippers in the play-in.

It figured to be a bloodbath against top-seeded Phoenix, especially after the Suns finished the season as the fifth most accurate 3-point shooting team in the league.

Low and behold, several key Suns had a tough series from behind the arc (including two current Knicks, Cam Payne and Landry Shamet. On the plus side, Mikal Bridges was 8-of-15 from deep). The poor outside shooting may have helped make the series closer than it should have been, but the Pels ultimately fell in six games.

2020-21 Blazers

• 24th in opponents’ 3-point percentage during the regular season

• 16th in opponents’ 3-point frequency during the regular season

• 14th lowest frequency of wide-open threes allowed during the regular season

• 6th highest frequency of open threes allowed during the regular season

PLAYOFFS: 2nd highest opponents’ 3-point accuracy, 6th highest opponents’ 3-pt frequency

Another comp we can probably toss out. Portland entered the playoffs with the league’s 29th ranked defense, and the Nuggets eviscerated them from behind the arc in a six-game first round defeat.

If you’re keeping track, that’s seven teams who ranked 24th or worst in limiting opponents’ 3-point accuracy and seven teams who failed to make it out of the first round. Granted, all seven were in the bottom half of their respective playoff bracket, but still…this ain’t great.

At least I’ve saved the best for last…

2020-21 Bucks

• 29th in opponents’ 3-point percentage during the regular season

• 26th in opponents’ 3-point frequency during the regular season

• 2nd highest frequency of wide-open threes allowed during the regular season

• 15th highest frequency of open threes allowed during the regular season

PLAYOFFS: 7th lowest opponents’ 3-point accuracy, 6th lowest opponents’ 3-point frequency

The 2020-21 Bucks entered the playoffs with the 9th best defense in basketball. That was pretty good, but nowhere near the level of their top-ranked unit from the previous two seasons.

They were still following through on their general formula, which was to take away the rim at all costs, but they had pushed it to the point of absurdity. Teams fired away at will against the ‘20-21 Bucks and were making almost everything they attempted. Worst of all, a startlingly high number of those threes were wide open. It’s no wonder not everyone was convinced they would defeat Miami in a 3 v 6 first round matchup.

Of course, we know what happened next.

So…should the 2021 NBA Champion Milwaukee Bucks give Knicks fans some hope? Maybe a little, yeah. Like these Knicks, they had the personnel to sport a decent enough defense, and had the pedigree of being an excellent defensive team in the years leading up to their title win. They somewhat made their own bad luck in the regular season, but there was also reason to believe the numbers would even out. Eventually, with a little cleaning up on the defensive end, they did.

We can only hope the 2024-25 Knicks follow the same path.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

1. Which the league defines as a 3-pointer attempted with the closest defender at least six feet away

2. Where the closest defender is between 4-6 feet away.

3. Anyone that ranked 24th or worst in opposing 3-point accuracy.

4. I used a combination of NBA.com stats and Cleaning the Glass for this exercise, simply because CTG doesn’t have data on wide open shots, open shots and the like.