The Knicks FanBlog

It’s only natural to want to, what with Linsanity and the zaniness surrounding the Knicks’ decision to let him go and all the anonymous recriminations that happened in the press after the fact. Just the other night I caught myself comparing Lin to Felton when they went head-to-head. But I don’t think it’s productive. You just can’t learn anything all that helpful by doing it.

For the record I think Lin is the more talented player. I think he’s better now and, at 24, he’s still improving while, at 28 and in his 8th NBA season, Felton is what he is. But that doesn’t mean he was the right player for the Knicks and, with benefit of hindsight, it’s hard to argue with the Knicks decision to let him go. As of today the team is 19-6. The Knicks have only gotten off to this fast a start twice in their history and both of those seasons ended with championship parades.

I view this team as a classic “great chemistry team”. By all rights, a team with these particular players probably should not be this good but, for reasons that can’t be so readily explained, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I can look at the stats and explain to you what the Knicks are doing well to win so many games. What I can’t explain is why, given their recent histories, these particular guys in this combination are able to do these things.

And that’s why it isn’t helpful to compare. Maybe Lin is a better player than Felton. Maybe he’s going to get even better still. But that doesn’t mean that the Knicks would be a better team if they had him here in Felton’s stead.

Personally, I don’t think they would be. I’m skeptical that the disparate parts and unlikely contributors on this roster would have fomented into the well-oiled offensive machine we see today had it been Lin in training camp instead of Felton. And I suspect that Melo would not have been able to shake off whatever misgivings he had about Lin and become the small-forward-turned-power-forward-killing-machine that’s propelled this team forward all season.  The Knicks would probably still be a good team, but I doubt they’d be this good, because whatever is going on with them is bigger than simply having the best talent.

So while I certainly understand the urge to compare the young point guard many of us loved to the somewhat maddening point guard we have now, we should try to remember that the Felton-led Knicks are sitting pretty atop the Eastern Conference. And sure, Ray hasn’t been bringing as much to the party lately, but then maybe the party never happens at all without him.

The Knicks have played 20 games and are thus roughly a quarter of the way through the season. Their current .750 winning percentage would, extrapolated out for the year, give the Knicks 61-62 wins, their finest win total since the Pat Riley coached 92-93 squad took the Bulls to six  in the Eastern Conference Finals (dunk it Smith!). As a matter of fact, if the Knicks continued at this clip, they’d be the winningest team in franchise history.

So, so far, so good. How has this happened?

Let’s take a look at what the Knicks are really good at, and this won’t come as a surprise to a lot of you.

1. The Knicks have the best turnover rate in the league – they turn the ball over on only 11.7% of their possessions.
2. This naturally means that opponents don’t get easy baskets off of turnovers: just 12.1 per game.
3. The Knicks are ball-hawks too, ranking fourth in opponents’ turnover rate (17.4%).
4. The Knicks also shoot (29.4) and make (11.9) more threes than any other team in the league (pace adjusted numbers, e.g, per 48 minutes). As a matter of fact, no team in the history of history has shot more threes than the Knicks have so far this year, and more than a full third of their points come from behind the arc. Their 40.5% clip is good for third best in the league.
5. Combine the threes with the lack of possessions squandered to turnovers and the Knicks come in second to the Thunder in offensive efficiency for the first quarter-season (110.2 points per 100 possessions).
6. The threes, the careful wardship of the ball, and the squad’s ball-hawking ways also likely mitigates their awful rebounding. The Knicks corral 47.6% of available boards, which ranks them 3rd to last in the league. However, despite the poor rebounding, the Knicks still rank first by a wide-margin in “extra scoring chances per game“* at 5.5.

And as is always true of sports (and politics), there’s a bit of a narrative around this squad – mainly regarding their passing and their defense. Don’t get me wrong, the Knicks aren’t unselfish, and they aren’t a poor defensive team, but if you just judged by ESPN radio or talking heads on TNT you might think that these areas represented Knicks’ strengths. They don’t.

• The Knicks assist on 16.1% of their makes – good for 24th in the league. Not sure what to make of that number – since my eyes don’t really tell me that the squad over-relies on ISO. But the Knicks just don’t assist. They’re first in unassisted 2 pointers (61.3% of their twos) and second in unassisted threes (46.4% of their threes). They’re second to last in unassisted FGM. And for all of the accolades ‘Melo has gotten about passing out of double teams and whatnot, his assist rate is at a career low by far (7.1%) (same with Felton).
• The Knicks D may be a touch overrated too. We’ve all seen the D dominate, but especially during the early part of the year. Has that really been the case lately? The Knicks currently allow 101.1 points per 100 possessions to opponents, which is good for 12th place. Solid, but not spectacular. Here’s how that number has evolved over the course of the season.
  • Rank, games 1 -5: 3
  • games 6-10: 14
  • games 11-15: 15
  • games 16-20: 13
• Seems that after a hot defensive start, the team has leveled off and is playing league-average D.
•  Fortunately, the Knicks’ 9.0 margin between ORtg and DRtg is second best in the league.

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Some observations:

* Sorry but J.R.’s game drives me nuts. The Bobcats game was a perfect example – with the score tied and a handful of seconds left, the Knicks forced a turnover and had a two on one. Instead of taking advantage and spreading the defender thin to cover two the two breaking Knicks by sprinting towards the basket, Smith ran back to the three point line. Why, why, why? Of course, shortly thereafter Smith hit a step-back, defended, buzzbeater to send the Knicks home with a victory. He got all the accolades, and good for him, I guess. Smith’s supporters often say “I’ll take the bad with the good”, but you have to wonder, as I have in the past, if you’re better off without knuckleheads like this. The numbers seem to suggest it, as the Knicks offensive efficiency with Smith on the court is vastly inferior to their efficiency with him off of it (105.2 vs. 120.5).

*As noted above, I’m perplexed at how the Knicks appear to be playing so unselfishly yet rank so poorly in assist ratio. Some numbers on how the Knicks’ leading scorers’ score: ‘Melo, as one might expect takes more shots than anyone on the team, or in the league for that matter (20.2). Of those 20.2, he makes 9.2, and of those 9.2, 56% are unassisted. Similarly, Smith takes 12.7, makes 4.9, and is unassisted on 61.2% of those. Felton’s baskets come unassisted 69% of the time, and he’s second on the team in both makes (6.5) and takes (15.7).

These three are, and have been throughout their careers, guys who haven’t been shy about looking for their shot, so the trends are merely continuing, but it just hasn’t looked like it, at least to me.

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*definition.

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Stats taken from Basketball-Reference, NBA.com/Stats, Hoopdata, and Teamrankings.

Record: 12-4

• Offense: 1
• Defense: 10
• Overall: 3

Record 7-9

• Offense: 27
• Defense: 22
• Overall: 28

The Bobcats appear to suck. But they are good at one thing: sucking quickly. They’re top 10 in pace, so there’s that. They get a lot of fast break points (5th in the NBA, 3rd as a % of their total points), but the Knicks generally put the kibosh on that kind of thing (11th in pace-adjusted fast break points allowed). Also, a lot of the Bobcats’ transition baskets depend on their ability to create turnovers and get off to the races (10th in OppTmTO%), but the Knicks just don’t turn it over (still 1st by a wide margin).

• Offense: 1
• Defense: 14
• Overall: 2

• Offense: 30
• Defense: 15
• Overall: 30

***

Something’s gotta give:

The Wizards are the worst team in the league, they have ONE win, the Friday Night Knicks curse must give tonight.

That being said, while the Wizards are the worst offensive team in the league their defense isn’t half bad coming in ranked 15th, one behind the Knicks. Look for a very slow paced game as both teams rank in the bottom tier of the league in pace.

The Wizards are a sorry excuse for a basketball team, unless Robert Randolph goes super-saiyan with his Friday Night Knicks Curse the Knicks should win this game in blowout fashion and hold the Wizards under 90 points.

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Offense, defense and overall rankings are based on ORtg, DRtg, and John Hollinger’s Power Rankings, respectively. Hollinger’s method.

Source: NBA.com/stats; Espn.com

And thus the hour approacheth. The Knickerbockers laceth up their sneakers and prepareth the first salvo in a battle for supremacy over the city of York the Neweth, against the Nets’ forces that encroacheth closer now than the parched waste-dungeons to the west, where they once wereth.

Eth.

Record: 9-3

• Offense: 1
• Defense: 18
• Overall: 2

8-4

• Offense: 6
• Defense: 19
• Overall: 9

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Something’s gotta give:

• The Nets get a lot of second chance points. They rank 7th in the league in OffReb%. The Knicks, as we know, are smallish, but they corral a fair amount defensive rebounds (10th in DefReb%). Can the Knicks keep New Jersey off the offensive glass?
• Turnovers:
  • The Nets rank 24th in points off turnovers. The Knicks rank first in turnover rate.
    • Can the Knicks capitalize tonight by combining their care with the ball with the Nets’ ineptitude in converting on turnovers?
  • The Nets are 9th in turnover rate. The Knicks force turnovers at the third highest rate and are the 5th most efficient in converting them into points.
    •  Can the Knicks coerce the Nets to cough up more turnovers then they’re ordinarily prone to (>14ish, adjusted for pace) in order to capitalize on their own efficiency in converting turnovers?
• Expect a slow game. Both teams are in the bottom five in pace.

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Offense, defense and overall rankings are based on ORtg, DRtg, and John Hollinger’s Power Rankings, respectively (which tells you far more than just NetRtg, which I was previously using). Hollinger’s method.

Source: NBA.com/stats; Espn.com

• Offense: 2
• Defense: 17
• Overall: 1

• Offense: 26
• Defense: 21
• Overall: 27

The Pistons aren’t any good at playing basketball. But let’s see…they, um, rank 11th in the league in pace-adjusted fouls drawn…and 10th in free throws attempted. So, um, the Knicks need to be careful not to get into foul trouble*, I guess. On the other hand the Pistons rank 26th in FT%. Did I mention that the Pistons aren’t any good? In my last blog post I cautioned everyone not panic about the Knicks recent swoon, but I will personally panic if they lose this game.

Also, the last time I did one of these previews the Knicks were 4th in DRtg…c’mon guys – that was 2 games ago!

* I checked for the hell of it: The Knicks commit the third least fouls in the NBA…really, the Knicks should walk all over the Pistons.

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Offense, defense and overall rankings are based on ORtg, DRtg, and NetRtg, respectively.

Source: NBA.com/stats

The Knicks started off the season 6-0 and were rightfully the talk of the league. Some shell-shocked Knicks fans were in a state of disbelief but wanted to tell ourselves that as long as the the squad continued to play elite defense and took care of the ball, they could weather some inevitable ups and downs in the scorching three point percentage that had carried them to a league leading point differential. Through their first six games the Knicks ranked second in DRtg, and first in turnover rate. Indeed, their league leading ranking in 3PM and 3PT% were gravy.

But since that scorching start the Knicks are 2-3 and some of those 3 have been U-G-L-Y, particularly the loss last night against Houston, which brought back memories of this. What’s happened in the past five games? Facially it’s just clear that the Knicks aren’t shooting as well, and have collapsed on D. In other words, the Knicks have suffered a breakdown from the lofty heights that led them to such a hot start. Specifically, in the 5 games since November 16th, the Knicks:

• regressed to 11th in 3PT%, even though they’ve continued to shoot more threes than any other team; and
• ranked better than just 5 other teams on defense based on DRtg.

Cause to panic? Not necessarily. Based on what I’ve and others (like Clyde) have observed over the most recent stretch, I went into this post assuming I’d write about how the Knicks haven’t been passing anymore, and that they’ve started to turn the ball over at an alarming rate, but neither is true. While the Knicks ranked best in turnover rate over the first six games, they’re worse than just 3 other teams over the most recent five. And the Knicks are actually 2 spots better in assist rate than they were in their first six games (from 18th to 16th – no great shakes either way).

Bottom line? 11th place in 3PT% is decent, but much less than ideal if the Knicks are going to continue shooting more threes than anyone else. Last night, 45% of the Knicks attempts came from deep – when did the Knicks bring Mike D’Antoni back? The Knicks need to diversify their offense. That is especially the case if they are going to continue to struggle defensively (after last night’s game the Knicks are ranked 17th in the league!). On that front, with the personnel they have there’s no reason the Knicks shouldn’t ultimately settle in closer to first than 25th. If they can right the ship on D, continue to limit the turnovers, and diversify their offense a bit, I think we can still expect great things.

• Offense: 1
• Defense: 4
• Overall: 1

• Offense: 11
• Defense: 20
• Overall: 15

***

Seems like the Mavs really fell off a cliff since the Knicks humbled them on November 9th. The Mavs entered that game 4-1 and are 2-5 since. They’re also one of the few teams ranked worse than the Knicks in rebound rate (23rd vs 28th). The Knicks also have the advantage when it comes to turnovers (1st vs. 13th), and when the Mavs do turn it over they’re likely to cough up points (20th in pace-adjusted opponents’ points off TOs) so look for the Knicks to may hay by forcing the Mavs into errors (although the Knicks aren’t that efficient in converting opportunities off of TOs – 14th).

Another prediction: The Mavs will not hurt the Knicks inside. Not only are the Mavs 22nd in points in the paint (not really surprising considering their personnel), the Knicks keep teams from scoring in there to the tune of 6th best in the league. If the Knicks keep up their excellent perimeter defense, this should be another gimme.

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Offense, defense and overall rankings are based on ORtg, DRtg, and NetRtg, respectively.

Source: NBA.com/stats