The New York Knicks’ Offense has been dreadful, but any improvement could lead them to the playoffs in the lowly East
Is it to early to talk playoffs in the NBA?
Fact: It’s never too early to talk playoffs in the NBA.
I can’t say I’m surprised by the Knicks’ half decent start because I picked the Knicks to be one my five possible surprise teams of the season. But, for the majority of the country, I’d say most people are surprised the Knicks have won two games through the first five, especially with how they’ve played.
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Statistically speaking, the Knicks have been pretty awful, which is to be expected. As a team, they’re only shooting 44 percent, which is good for 19th in the league, and they’re allowing opponents to shoot 46 percent. As far as I’m concerned, good teams and playoff contending teams don’t shoot lower percentages than their opponents. That’s just not a good recipe for winning games. As you would assume, the Knicks are also allowing opponents to 96.9 PPG on average, and the Knicks are averaging 89.8 PPG.
While I’m on the subject, the Knicks have been surprisingly good defensively this season, for their standards.
Can the offense get much worse?
As bad as it has been for the Knicks, and I can’t really imagine it getting much worse, the Knicks are still 2-3 and appear to be right in the thick of the Eastern Conference.
By now, I’ve had enough time to see all of the teams play a little, and I can say the Knicks are a middle of the pack team in the East, without a doubt. They’re not good, by any means, but they’re far from the worst teams in the conference.
New York is still at square one of the rebuilding process. They’ve got the star in Carmelo Anthony, but there’s so much still that needs to be built around him to make everything go. Even so, the Knicks might just be good enough to sneak out the 8-seed in the East.
I know it sounds crazy, but there’s no way the Knicks will average less than 90 points per game. This offense, as they learn the Triangle and learn how to play with each other within the offense, there’s good chance the Knicks will at least be an average offensive team.
I mean, take a look at their stats right now:
| Rk | Player | G | MP | FG | FGA | FG% | 3P% | AST | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Carmelo Anthony | 5 | 34.6 | 7.8 | 19.2 | .406 | .375 | 4.4 | 19.6 |
| 2 | Iman Shumpert | 5 | 28.4 | 4.4 | 10.2 | .431 | .688 | 2.4 | 13.2 |
| 3 | Shane Larkin | 5 | 27.8 | 2.6 | 5.6 | .464 | .286 | 3.2 | 6.8 |
| 4 | J.R. Smith | 4 | 24.5 | 3.0 | 7.8 | .387 | .222 | 4.0 | 7.5 |
| 5 | Amar’e Stoudemire | 5 | 24.4 | 5.0 | 10.0 | .500 | 1.2 | 11.6 | |
| 6 | Jason Smith | 5 | 20.2 | 4.4 | 7.6 | .579 | 0.8 | 10.4 | |
| 7 | Quincy Acy | 4 | 19.5 | 2.0 | 4.5 | .444 | .000 | 1.5 | 4.0 |
| 8 | Pablo Prigioni | 5 | 18.0 | 1.2 | 3.0 | .400 | .417 | 2.0 | 3.8 |
| 9 | Samuel Dalembert | 5 | 16.4 | 0.8 | 3.2 | .250 | 1.8 | 2.0 | |
| 10 | Tim Hardaway | 5 | 14.2 | 3.2 | 7.4 | .432 | .389 | 1.0 | 8.6 |
| 11 | Cole Aldrich | 5 | 12.8 | 1.0 | 2.6 | .385 | 1.0 | 2.4 |
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 11/6/2014.
Are we really going to assume Carmelo Anthony, a player who’s averaged more than 25 PPG for five out of the last six seasons, is going to average less than 20 PPG?
Is every Knicks’ player, other than Anthony, going to average less than 20 minutes per game?
Are J.R. Smith, Shane Larkin, and Tim Hardaway Jr. really going to average 22.9 points in 66.3 minutes per game?
I don’t there’s any way that happens. Maybe I’m too much of a believer in Phil Jackson, the triangle offense, and Anthony, but I can’t imagine the Knicks not getting any better this season on the offensive end. It’s just not realistic to think they could be any worse.
Room for Improvement
There’s so room for improvement with this Knicks’ offensive. All jokes aside, Amar’e Stoudemire has been the most consistent offensively for New York. He’s averaging 11.6 PPG in 24.4 minutes per game, and he’s shooting 50 percent from the field. Stoudamire is incredibly overpaid, as everyone knows, but he’s actually been a good option for the Knicks this season.
Right now, there’s so much isolation still within the Knicks’ offense. I can’t tell if that’s intentional or not from Derek Fisher, or if the Knicks are so accustomed to playing that one-on-one style of offense they’ve used the last few seasons.
Personally, I think it’s a combination of different factors. Part of it is because New York is so used to clearing the floor for Anthony, but it’s also just a spacing issue. So much of the triangle offense, or any offense, is the player’s comfort level. If they’re not comfortable with the positions on the floor, naturally, they’re going to drift to more comfortable positions.
As the Knicks become more comfortable within their positions in the offense, they’re going to become more efficient and the offense is going to stop looking like a bunch of players bumping into defenders as they cut through the middle of the key.
It’s about Carmelo
This season is going to say more about Anthony than any of his 12 years in the NBA.
Not that I think Anthony cares much, but the Knicks gave up a team to get him there. They gave him more than $20 million per season, which actually might turn out to be a steal with the new TV deal, but this is his team. He has to make the next step to carry the team, a very bad team, into the playoffs at the very least.
As a fan of Anthony, I think he can do that, like he’s did in Denver for so many years. People don’t realize Anthony is a winner, but his regular season numbers and wins are as impressive as any of the other Top 20 players in the league, and even more impressive than some.
Up until last season, Anthony made the playoffs in every season he’s been in the league. He hasn’t had the success in the playoffs like some of the league’s great players, but he’s been there nearly every season of his career.
This might be the toughest challenge Anthony’s faced in his career, taking this team to the playoffs, but he’s got the great Phil Jackson calling the shots behind the scenes. If Anthony can achieve some of the success Kobe Bryant and, gulp, Michael Jordan achieved within the triangle, the Knicks actually do have a good chance to make the playoffs in the East.
Believe it.