VDesai wrote:In some ways it ways a tale of 2 seasons.For the first few months of the year we were running a top 3 NBA offense, breaking nearly every team record, with multiple games over 30 assists.
Then a few things happen:
-Deuce/KAT/Josh all develop "runner's/jumper's" knee at various points which clearly effect their level of play as all were having "career" type seasons before
-KAT jams his thumb and it clearly effects his 3 pt shot, his volume of 3's dips
-Strategically teams put Wings on KAT and Centers on Josh. A couple important things happen.
-KAT shies away from shooting 3s and making plays from the top and starts getting tunnel vision on drives with the smaller player on him.
-Josh at some point loses confidence on his 3 pt shooting (which starts the year well) and becomes less aggressive as a playmaker as he plays through his knee injury, causing too much offensive hesitation and allowing teams to let their 5's roam against him.
-As we start to get into close/uninspired games against bad teams, Jalen puts his cape on late in games and begins a streak of dominating down the stretch to save us late in games. The more this occurs, the more we lean back into iso-Jalen offense.
There are a number of coaching failures above.
-Clearly the Knicks needed more injury management, especially with KAT and Hart who played a lot of games at less than 100% with an overuse injury. These injuries don't get better by playing 40 mpg. Unfortunately the Knicks bench was light and Thibs didn't trust anyone to come in, but its chicken or egg, players can't seize a role without an opportunity.
-Thibs never developed a proper counter to the KAT/Josh conundrum where KAT's defender took Josh and Josh's defender took KAT. When we were getting 30+ assist games, its because BOTH of those guys were playmaking. After the NBA adjusted, it reduced the playmaking and changed the nature of the offense. What would have been a counter? The simple answer is mixing up the lineups more so teams couldn't make the same defensive adjustment, however very little changed in terms of positioning/sets.
-Would Deuce in the SL have made a difference? Knicks Social Media was dominated by the "5 shooter theory." I'm not entirely sure that is the answer- simply swapping Deuce for Hart does improve shooting and shooting gravity, but it does hurt a lineup that is low on rebounding and secondary playmaking. However there was room to try these lineups more - if you have what amounts to 6 players you trust, why was Deuce's minutes load as low as it was? After he returned from injury, he should have occupied a 6th starter role. However, given how much Thibs values size, he never seemed to want to play Deuce next to Brunson, which severely limited his minutes opportunity
-Personally, I think the 5 good shooters theory might be a bit overstated. Its not necessarily 5 shooters, but the ability to pose 5 legitimate threats with the ball on the perimeter. Most NBA lineups sport a worse shooter than Josh Hart as their 5th man. Josh can be a passable shooter if he's willing and a pretty good offensive playmaker (albeit one prone to a ghastly passing turnover due to his aggressiveness). However I think there's a few things that were overlooked with our "linueps."
-Bridges occupied the spot of a player who was putting up over 10 3's a game in the SL the prior year. He not only shot half that much, he shot it pretty poorly overall. And he was out there 40 minutes per game. On defense his main role was defending the ballhandler. So instead of Deuce replacing Hart, maybe it should have been Deuce playing more for Bridges. It would have been a more "like for like" role switch, as both played a similar role on defense and Deuce actually brings more gravity shooting the ball on offense. Thibs didn't want to lose Hart for Deuce, because Deuce doesn't do a lot of things that Hart does. While Bridges is taller than Deuce, Deuce does a lot of things Bridges does - and more in some ways, especially since out there with the starters. Bridges strength in ISO/mid range was negated by playing with KAT/Brunson. Staggering Bridges more with the 2nd unit would have given him more opportunities.
-Brunson being the primary ballhandler and the only ballhandler made it so that he rarely got catch and shoot and off-ball scoring opportunities. Given his intelligence/low-turnovers, he absolutely should be the PG, however given his scoring, you can maximize him and reduce some of his energy load by playing him with a secondary playmaker capable of taking some of the ballhandling off his plate. Josh did some of that, but that isn't his primary strength. Brunson is maybe our best shooter or at least 2nd best - I think if he got more open catch and shoots it would make it easier on his scoring load and make the offense a bit more free flowing. However you have to be willing to play another "PG-like" player with him to do this.
In conclusion, I think Thibs started the year with good intentions. Injuries, lack of depth forced him to old habits. Being a stubborn type, he overlooked the flaws of what he was doing and kept leaning back to what he knew. BTW, "what he knew," still won them a lot of games and got them pretty fair. Over the last 20 years, not many coaches have consistently won more in the NBA than Thibs. His style does win games. It's not pretty, and it hasn't won a championship. That doesn't mean it can't work. However I don't think there's anyone who felt that this roster was fully maximized. The question was, would a 2nd crack at this have gotten Thibs to go back to what worked early in the year, or was he going further down the road of playing "his style" without the right roster to match it. I think Leon & co. felt that they had to make the change to get this roster playing its best.
Good summary.
Deuce got hurt at beginning of January and struggled for the month and maybe more months after. Hamstring? Knee? I can't recall. OG pretty much misses most of the beginning of Feb coming back after all star break.
After missing the early parts of season, Shamet comes back into rotation in January. Precious missed Nov and comes back in December.
Deuce misses first week Jan, not much OG in Feb. Lots more Shamet, Precious at the beginning of the year.
Knicks offense really great Nov to January. OG misses Feb, Deuce plays really poorly in Feb after injury as well as March, April (missing time at end of March into April).
Brunson misses games starting beginning of March.
After the Nov-Jan stretch of top 5 or whatever offense, Knicks are hard pressed to find good offensive play. They are even hard pressed to try the 5-out cause of players missing games too? Well, OG misses Feb. Brunson misses March. Deuce plays poorly after his Feb injury.
Knicks never recovered after OG went down in Feb and Brunson followed in March. By the time April rolls around and OG, Deuce, Brunson back, KAT does his finger thing?
6/10/2025 11:14 AM
