The Knicks came off the NYC Marathon weekend looking a little sluggish on Monday night at Madison Square Garden. The veteran team was slow to react on defense and stagnant on offense, while the youthful Wizards pushed the pace and had the Knicks on their heels, taking a 30-22 lead at the end of the first quarter.
However, much like the NYC Marathon, an NBA game is a grind, and even though the Wizards gave the Knicks everything they could handle for half of the contest, the Knicks adjusted to the younger team’s length and athleticism. The Knicks came out of halftime and clamped down on the Wizards’ transition offense while swinging the ball beautifully to get repeated open looks from beyond the arc. The adjustments led to a 41-24 third-quarter advantage that helped fuel a 119-102 win.
“We were protecting the paint,” said Josh Hart after the game about the defensive changes the Knicks made in the third quarter. “We gave up a lot of weak-side roll dunks in the first half. So we kind of just cleaned that up, got stops, out ran, and do what we do.” Karl Anthony Towns would credit Gershon Yabusele with coming into the game and “getting steals and translating them into points,” but whichever way you slice it, the adjustments and the win were just another example of how deep this Knicks team could be.
On the night, five Knicks hit multiple three-point shots, led by Towns, who went 3-of-8 from beyond the arc and led all scorers with 33 points to go along with 13 rebounds, five assists, and two steals. Six other Knicks finished in double figures, with OG Anunoby having 16 points, six rebounds, and five steals, and Josh Hart chipping in 12 points, 10 rebounds, and five assists off the bench.
“I was frustrated about some things,” said Hart about rebounding from previous poor performances. “Obviously, injuries and all that, so I’m trying to figure it out. It was just a, you know what, let me make sure I go out there and play the game with joy and get back to being just me.”
On the other side, Alex Sarr and Kyshawn George continued their breakout seasons for the Wizards in a losing effort. Sarr finished with 19 points, eight rebounds, seven assists, and two steals, while George had 15 points, five rebounds, three steals, and two assists. It wasn’t enough tonight, but it’s enough to give Wizards’ fans plenty of hope for the future.
This was a Karl-Anthony Towns statement game
The Knicks clearly wanted to attack through Towns tonight. The center hit a three off a pick-and-pop for the first points in the game, and the Knicks used him as the hub of the offense in the perimeter pick-and-roll game right from the start. He finished the quarter with eight points and three assists while shooting 2-of-3 from deep, and it seemed like Towns would flourish on the perimeter for much of the game.
However, the team also felt comfortable having Towns try and bully second-year center Alex Sarr in the post. At one point in the second quarter, Towns aggressively backed Sarr down until he was under the basket and then emphatically dunked on the young Wizards center. That’s not a small feat since Sarr is 2nd in the NBA with 2.2 blocks per game and is 4th in contested shots.
Perhaps the added emphasis on Towns creating offense was a response to the big man’s slow start to the season in Mike Brown’s offense. Towns came into the game averaging 18.3 points and 2.8 assists, while shooting 35.7% from three and 38% overall. All of those numbers would be essentially the worst marks he’s posted in any season of his career. A 2-for-12 performance three games ago against the Bucks seemed to be the nadir for Towns, and the big man has been slowly crawling back to his previous levels before having arguably his best game of the season tonight.
“I just saw the opportunity to get some shots up,” said Towns about his performance. “I just wanted to take advantage of the opportunity.”
Getting Towns comfortable in the offense is crucial for the Knicks if they want to ultimately hoist a trophy at the end of the season. They don’t want to be as reliant on Jalen Brunson dominating the offense with the ball in his hands. They want to run a faster scheme that relies on hitting the extra pass and making the defense work. They have to get comfortable doing that while Towns also feels confident that he can get his looks in that type of scheme without having to force isolation post possessions, like he did against Kyle Kuzma in that Bucks game.
“He’s starting to feel and find his rhythm and what we’re trying to do,” said Coach Brown after the win, “but I’m telling you, there’s still a lot of room there to grow. Not just for him, but for us to learn him, starting with me, and us to continue learning the different points or parts of what we’re trying to do offensively.”
On Monday, we saw some of that growth. Towns showed that he’s capable of taking his man off the dribble and capitalizing on a mismatch while also cutting off the ball, hitting spot-up threes, and working within the flow of the larger offense. Now, the Knicks just need to see him do it regularly.
Washington plays fast and loose, and it’s both fun and dangerous
The Wizards are the second youngest team in the NBA, with an average age of 23.78. Only the Brooklyn Nets have a younger roster. Given that, it’s no surprise that this team wants to play fast.
The Wizards came into Monday ranking 2nd in the NBA in pace. The Knicks, who have talked about wanting to play faster, ranked 28th. Early on, the Wizards’ pace and athleticism were a major problem for the Knicks. Washington was too quick and physical defensively when the Knicks tried to use the pick-and-roll to create offensive opportunities. The Wizards were also too athletic and long when the Knicks tried to thread the needle on passes through minuscule passing lanes.
When the Knicks would miss a shot or give the ball away, the Wizards were down the court on the other end in a hurry. In the first quarter, the Wizards had nine assists and were shooting nearly 75% from the field while taking a surprising eight-point lead. Of course, they also had seven turnovers and would ultimately finish the game with 20, but, even when the shots weren’t falling, you saw flashes of what this team can be.
“They made an adjustment a little bit with their movement, their pace of offense, really in the half court,” said Wizards’ head coach Brian Keefe, “but we were running our offense pretty good. We were getting the shots we want. Sometimes they just don’t go in. But we’re going to play with that pace because we think that’s going to lead to us being a successful team. We’re a pretty deep team. That’s hard to handle when we’re really moving the ball like that. You can see that, at times. It’s got to get more consistent. That’s what we’re trying to work on every day to grow for our team.”
That inconsistency was certainly on display on Monday and is part of the downside of playing at the speed that the Wizards do, with the lack of experience that they have. There will be stretches of games where their young, physical defenders like George and Bilal Coulibaly frustrate their opponents and allow the offense to get plenty of easy buckets. There will also be stretches where the Wizards play a bit too out of control, throwing wild passes or losing control of the handle in traffic.
It makes for entertaining basketball, and the Wizards may very well iron out the kinks and become a really tough matchup in the second half of the season, but right now they’re going through the growing pains.
The Knicks are finally leaning into the NBA’s three-point landscape
When the Knicks made a coaching change and moved on from Tom Thibodeau after making the Eastern Conference Finals last season, it was a clear message that his style of play was not one that the front office believed could win them a title. The change to new head coach Mike Brown has not only brought an increased focus on pace and ball movement but a vast uptick in three-point frequency.
Coming into Monday’s game, the Knicks were 3rd in the NBA with 44.3 three-point attempts per game and led the league in corner three-point attempts per game. That’s a stark change from last year, when the Knicks were 27th in the NBA at 34 attempts per game. Last year, they shot 36.9%, which was 9th-best in the league, and this year they are shooting 36.5%, which is 13th in the league.
“I love it,” Coach Brown said of the team’s willingness to put up shots from beyond the arc. “You know, if any of our guys are open from three, I want them to let it fly.”
The Knicks aren’t just taking lots of threes, but they’re taking good threes.
Entering Monday, the Knicks were getting the 4th most open threes per game at 18.8 per game. Open, according to NBA.com, is when there is no defender within four to six feet. Last year, the Knicks had 15.3 open threes a game and just 14.5 wide-open threes per game, no defender within six feet, second-to-last in the league. This year’s Knicks team came into tonight getting 18.7 wide-open three-point shots per game. However, they were shooting just 36.6% on them, which was 21st in the league.
“The NBA trackscopen threes,” explained Coach Brown, “but they use cameras, and it’s not always accurate. So I have one of my coaches go back after every game, and one of his jobs is to track our threes. And our last game against Chicago, we had 27 wide-open catch-and-shoot threes, which is phenomenal…All of our guys are making quick decisions. That’s one of our staples offensively. We want to make quick decisions before the defense has a chance to get settled in, and that’s shooting the ball, passing the ball, or SNAP driving before the defense is settled to put more pressure on them.”
That fearlessness to pull from beyond the arc was on full display early on Monday. In the first quarter, the Knicks took 26 shots, and 13 of them were from deep. They shot just 3-for-13 in the first quarter and trailed 30-22. Midway through the third quarter, they were 9-for-26 from beyond the arc, and it seemed like it would be another rough shooting night before the shots started to fall.
They wound up hitting 6-of-10 from deep in the quarter, and that stretch alone should be proof that this approach is an exciting one for the Knicks. The quality of shots the team is generating is significantly improved, and they’re running a scheme that will allow them to score points in bunches without taxing their best players with slow-developing, dribble-heavy possessions. If those open looks start to fall consistently, as they did in the third quarter, the Knicks are going to be tough for anybody to beat.