New York Knicks: 5 goals for Kristaps Porzingis in 2017-18

5.Play to the finish

Kristaps Porzingis cannot help the Knicks if he is finishing out close games on the bench as the result of fouling out. He had the honor of finishing with the 10th most personal fouls for the 2016-17 regular season with 244 — an average 3.7 per game.

His advantage of being the biggest man on the court at times makes himself vulnerable to be drawn into fouls from his opponents. Often he does not contest straight up and is caught jumping into his defender, resulting in foul calls for even the slightest bit of contact.

During the six games Porzingis fouled out of during the 2016-17 season, the Knicks’ lost three of those games and they were lost by two points, three points and eight points.

Even though the New York Knicks’ still finished 10 games out of the eighth seed last season, every game counts and it drastically changes the course of the game when Porzingis is in foul trouble early.

In total he finished the season with 13 games in which he committed five fouls, and 33 games where he committed 3-4 fouls. The Knicks’ are obviously in better shape if Kristaps Porzingis is on the court and he should look to remove this major flaw in his game sooner rather than later.