No. 3: The Knicks should’ve added some bench scoring
This year, New York’s defense has been off the charts. Contenders are coming to Madison Square Garden in hopes of surpassing the 100-point mark and, more often than not, fail to meet the criteria due to the team’s asphyxiating defense.
However, it’s a whole other story when it comes to the offense. It seems like the Knicks are getting no easy buckets and some of the more inexperienced guys in the team often struggle when going up against the league’s top defenses.
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Despite being top-10 in 3-point shooting throughout the last 10 games, the Knicks haven’t exactly been a sharpshooting team from behind the arc this season. The shooting struggles we witnessed during the first trimester of the season might come back to haunt the team during the critical playoff push.
So far, the team has been getting some much-needed bench scoring out of Alec Burks, Derrick Rose and rookie Immanuel Quickley. With the latter duo flirting with the starting point guard spot, a huge gap will be created amongst the reserves very soon.
Seeing the candidates that were available via trade, it seems like the Knicks wouldn’t have to do all that much to get their hands on some of the league’s best bench scorers. Evan Fournier and J.J. Redick basically got moved for scraps, an action in which the Knicks should’ve gotten in on.
Even some of the players that stayed put would’ve made fine choices for this role. The Orlando Magic just underwent a huge overhaul and Terrence Ross was definitely up for grabs. At the end of the day, would a Wayne Ellington return be the worst thing in the world?