Team of the Week- New York Knicks

One of the sections I want to have on the blog is sponsoring a team of the week, and then providing some more in-depth insights and statistics about them. In honor of my friend Greg, the inaugural team of the week will be the New York Knicks.

I admit I had to do a little more research on the Knicks because I, and everyone else outside the New York area have only seen them play once nationally this year (before their Christmas day showdown with DWade), or in the last three for that matter. And that game was only on ESPN due to the number 23 on the Cavs. That being said, their recent run does deserve some investigation and comments.

Note: Again this was written before Christmas Day despite the post time. I will address their game against the Heat in a later post.

1) They are 8-3 in their last 11, mainly they have finally realized they need to start playing some semblance of defense. As you mentioned, they have held their last 8 opponents to under 100 points. Impressive, but in looking closer, these were not any of the top NBA scoring teams, actually quite the opposite: five of the games were against the three teams ranked last in the league in scoring (New Jersey, and then Chicago and Charlotte twice each). The highest scoring team they faced in that stretch was the 18th ranked Hornets. They get another poor scoring team in the 23rd ranked Heat tomorrow. Still, they are playing at least some defense against teams they should be shutting down, and so despite it being against horrible offenses, it is a start.

2) It's no secret that Mike D'Antoni's system is based on shooting lots of 3's and getting their opponents to fall into the same pattern. As Chris Sheridan discussed, this is a proven system that helped Phoenix average over fifty wins for the better part of four years. If they are hitting their threes (which they are shooting at just under 35% as a team, which isn’t horrible considering the incredible volume of shots they take) they can play with anyone. Especially in the NBA, with the short shot clock, the 3 is the great equalizer. Interestingly, it also in the Knicks best interest to have their opponents get 3 happy, as they are third in the league in defending the 3, holding opponents to just under 32%...must be all that practice they get in intra squad scrimmages.

3) What gets the Knicks in trouble is when their jump shots are not going down, especially because they take so many of them. (66% of their team shots are jumpers.) Much like the Suns of the past, they can easily blow a huge lead or fall into a huge hole quickly with a bad shooting stretch. They don't have a superstar or a true go to player that can slow a game down and get them easy buckets in other ways consistently. Harrington is the closest thing they have to a multi-dimensional player, but he would much rather just stand out with the rest of his teammates and shoot from distance.

4) As much as I love David Lee, and he is having a hell of a season (18 and 10 a night), and should make the All-Star team, they desperately lack a strong inside presence that they can feed during the cold shooting nights. A player like Chris Bosh, who they might sign in 2010 would really help them, because he demands attention on the low block, and that would only help to free up more shooters. Bosh is definitely leaving Toronto, and he has experience playing under D'Antoni in the Olympics, so I could see this happening, especially if LBJ and Wade stay put.

5) Another thing they need to do is start protecting their home floor. To be a great team you should win over 80% of your home games. To be a good team, you should win over 65%. Right now, the Knicks do not fit into either of those categories. They are actually 7-8 at the Garden this year. But again in looking at what they have done lately, they have won their last six there, and will look to pull to .500 tomorrow, so again for now they seem to be improving.

6) The insertion of Jared Jeffries to over 30 minutes a game has helped by adding a consistent defensive minded player into the rotation. The main issue though remains at point guard. The system thrives with a multi skilled point guard like Nash, but not as much with Duhon and Hughes. I mean the combination of them are still averaging less assists than Nash this season. I think watching them nightly after coaching Nash, and passing on the attempt to coach Derek Rose, the penultimate point guard for his system, must haunt D’Antoni, but he’s making the best of a bad situation. Look no one saw Jennings being as good as he is, but I still think New York blew it by picking Jordan Hill. He wasn't going to get many minutes playing behind their best player, and he doesn’t have the outside game to be a 4, so they might as well have gambled on the bevy of pgs left, be it Jennings, or Ty Lawson, Eric Maynor, Jru Holiday, even Jeff Teague or Darren Collison (ok the last two are a bit of a stretch, but you get the point...which ironically the Knicks failed to do leading to that last rant)....but at least they can fix their mistake with their 2010 first round pick...oh wait they traded that unprotected too.

7) Ok, I feel obliged to dive into Danilo Gallinari. No one can deny that he can shoot the ball, and I'd say he is already one of the top 10 pure shooters in the league. But he is also way too one dimensional, with 83% of his shots being jumpshots. He is also getting shredded on defense on a nightly basis, with players he is guarding averaging about 24 points a night against him. He also doesn’t really contribute in any other ways offensively besides shooting the ball. At 6'10 he needs to be averaging more than 4.8 rebounds a game, and in keeping with the abysmal assist totals on this team, he needs to improve on his 1.4 a game rate. That being said, this is truly his first year in the league, and he is already elite at one skill which will keep him in the NBA for years (i.e. Brent Barry, Jason Kapono, Kyle Korver etc.), but if the Knicks want to improve back to the level of the John Starks, Spreewell, LJ days, Gallinari needs to widen his game greatly.

8) Overall, I think this Knicks team will be an interesting one to watch the rest of the way. At the beginning of the year there was so much talk about the Summer of LeBron, and what moves the front office was going to make, that the team was not focused nor thought they could win. But a real turning point was in the narrow loss to Boston a few weeks back. After that, there has been a change around this team, and the development of the belief that they can actually win, and more importantly, that they should win. Look, they are by no means going to contend or even win a playoff series this year, but I think that the future in New York could be brighter than they thought. If Gallinari continues to develop, they keep David Lee, and then maybe deal for a point guard there is no reason why they shouldn't make the playoffs in the East this year. And then with Donnie Walsh ready to pounce on a big free agent or two this summer, the Knicks could finally be on the path to right the ship that Isaiah Thomas so badly crashed and burned.