One Knicks Adjustment Might Do Wonders for Them vs. Celtics

In their season-opening loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, the New York Knicks did not exactly look like the offensive juggernaut from last postseason whose dishing and swishing captivated so many sports fans.

Instead, the Knicks looked flat for a majority of the championship banner-raising evening, losing 106-100 in their kickoff to their title defense season.

The offensive numbers were as ugly as the on-court product: the Knicks shot 37% from the field, 33% from three-point range, 70% from the line, and had 21 assists to 14 turnovers. Their offensive rating (points score per 100 possessions) for the evening was just 98.0—21 points worse than their postseason offensive rating.

There is obviously no need to panic. This was one game against a motivated opponent, on a night where the Knicks were surely emotionally exhausted from the pregame ceremonies.

One simple fix for these offensive struggles is for players to hit shots they normally make. Brunson shot 6-of-19 from the field and missed many of his patented floaters and fade-aways. OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges shot a combined 1-of-11 from three. Andre Drummond took 13 shots (!) and missed at least three dunks.

Some of these things will regress toward the mean as players get their rhythm back.

But if the Knicks are looking for a more meaningful adjustment heading into the Friday night matchup against the Boston Celtics, they should follow a ska band’s advice: pick it up!

The Knicks need to play faster on offense

Knicks head coach Mike Brown repeatedly referred to his team as playing in “mud” during the season opener. It’s an apt description for the Knicks’ offensive flow.

The Knicks’ offensive actions on Tuesday had a laborious feel to them. 

Just as Brown said they would, the Knicks frequently used Towns as a “hub,” just as they did in the playoffs. The 76ers looked well prepared to defend these actions and were physical, jamming up some of the Knicks’ off-ball screens and cuts.

Credit to the Sixers for playing solid defense. But at times, the Knicks mosied through these plays.

The clip below (from our very own Shaz Ally) illustrates the Knicks’ poor spacing with Drummond, but it’s also representative of how the Knicks’ actions kind of meandered, with cutting and passing going nowhere and nobody moving especially fast.

Tracking data backed up the notion that the Knicks were taking too long to actually get shots up.

According to the NBA’s stats site, the Knicks took just six shots “very early” into the clock, which is with 22-18 seconds remaining on the 24-second shot clock. Fifty of their shots came in the “average” range—15-7 seconds remaining. And 20 of their field goals came with seven seconds or less remaining on the clock.

Furthermore, the stats site Inpredictable found that the Knicks averaged 14.2 seconds to take a shot after a defensive rebound, the third-slowest pace in the NBA during opening week. The Knicks posted a 33% effective field goal percentage on these plays, per Inpredictable.

Seth Partnow, an NBA analyst and former Milwaukee Bucks President of Basketball Research, had previously found that offensive rating decreases the further teams get into the shot clock. Logically, teams score more points, more efficiently, when they fly up and down the court—think about the fastbreak baskets that may come in the first four seconds of the shot clock.

Take this logic and apply it to the Knicks’ opening game, and it’s easy to see—beyond just poor shooting—how the Knicks’ semi-lethargic approach hurt them.

“Offensively, part of us looking like we were running in mud was, our spacing wasn’t great, we were walking everywhere, which hurt our spacing, and then when we did get to the paint, we couldn’t finish,” Brown told reporters after the game.

That about sums up the Knicks’ evening on Tuesday.

When the Knicks take on the Celtics on Friday, expect the team to come out with a bit more force and vigor. They’ll be helped by having a more typical warmup to the game—one without a ring ceremony.

Offense obviously looks better when shots are falling, regardless of when they’re taken on the shot clock. But the Knicks could help themselves by pressing the gas just a little more.

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