Knicks vs. Hawks: The (Likely) Quest for the East’s 8th Seed
When you think about the 2014-15 New York Knicks, there’s not a lot of good thoughts to go through. They’re, basically, nothing more than a team sleeping on another season waiting for the 2015 offseason to come along.
Why? We’ve previously talked about it, in 2015 the Knicks have a chance to dump the cap-sucking contracts of Amar’e Stoudemire and Andrea Bargnani and move on without them.
In essence, a rebuilding team, almost.
A Knicks playoff appearance is unlikely, if it happens it most certainly won’t be atop of the Eastern Conference. So, to try and dissect the Knicks’ chances at making the playoffs, we have to match them up against the team that might get in their way for that eighth and last spot in the playoffs; the Atlanta Hawks.
2013-14 Head-to-head
The Knicks and the Hawks split the four games of their 2013-14 season. Of course, the Knicks’ success against the Hawks didn’t translate to the rest of their opponents as they failed to make the playoffs with a 37-45 record.
Here are the split stats from the Knicks’ perspective:
By looking at the previous graph there seems to be no way to evaluate their success/failure against each other. So, naturally, we’ll have to go and look at their rosters.
2014-15 Roster
When you look at what each team did in the offseason, the Hawks, by acquiring Thabo Sefolosha and rookie power-forward Adreian Payne, might have gotten better than last year. The Knicks, however, getting rid of Tyson Chandler along with the fact that they’ll have to get used to their new offensive/defensive schemes under Phil Jackson‘s leadership, might’ve made them a little worse.
Come the 2014-15 season, the Knicks and Hawks go head-to-head thrice with — barring an unpredictable trade — the following lineups:
With similar starting lineups, both teams can get better on certain positions by mixing it up a bit. From a confidence standpoint, the Hawks are riding high because of the fact that, unlike the Knicks, they did make the playoffs last year and were on the verge of bouncing the crumbling Indiana Pacers in a seven-game series.
Schedule Strength
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A team’s chances at a playoff seed lie, mostly, on the team’s performance against the rest of the league. So, if the Knicks and/or the Hawks were to perform at a high level against the rest of the league, they may not need to fight over the last playoff spot once the end of the season gets close.
The Knicks play 52 games (roughly 63 percent of their regular season) against the Eastern Conference and only 30 (37 percent) against the Western Conference. If they were to lose each of those 30 games against the West, they’d still be looking at a 52-30 record which, by last year’s regular season standings, would be enough to take the third seed in an underachieving Eastern Conference.
Twenty-five out of the Knicks’ 52 Eastern Conference matchups are against the Cavaliers (3), Bulls (3), Heat (3), Raptors (4), Hornets (4), Nets (4), and Wizards (4), so it is
impossible
highly unlikely for the Knicks to go undefeated against the East.
Nevertheless, fortunately for Knicks, the Hawks play in the Southeast Division, and have 27 games against the Cavaliers (4), Bulls (3), Heat (4), Hornets (4), Raptors (4), Wizards (4) and Nets (4), giving them (the Knicks) a clear advantage over the Hawks, schedule-wise.