This is how the offense was expected to look.
The ball moved. Shots fell. Turnovers were limited to a minimum.
After some early issues, the Knicks are starting to get going at that end of the floor.
It’s no surprise they have won the last two games and done so in convincing fashion, by a combined 35 points.
“That’s the key: ball movement,” Julius Randle said. “Everybody gets touches. Play off each other. Everybody naturally gets in rhythm and [the ball] always finds you.”
In the last two games, the Knicks have averaged 118.5 points on 46.3 percent shooting with 28 assists and just 11 turnovers.
Four players reached double figures in the win over the Spurs on Wednesday and five against the Clippers on Monday.
It was reminiscent of the Knicks’ offense a year ago, which finished third in offensive rating and keyed their surprising fifth-place finish in the Eastern Conference.
“The thing, to me, is we want to have balance and the game tells you what to do,” coach Tom Thibodeau said. “If you’re open, shoot. If you’re guarded, make a play for one of your teammates. We have a lot of weapons. I think the bench, they get us going and play with a great spirit. They fly around, so we have really good quality depth, so I like the way both units are playing right now.”
Two major changes have taken place in these last two games.
RJ Barrett has returned after missing the previous two games — both losses — with a knee injury.
Barrett is off to a fantastic start, shooting 47.1 percent from 3-point range and is second on the Knicks in scoring at 22.3 points per game, just behind Jalen Brunson’s 22.5.
Perhaps even more important has been Randle’s return to the Randle the Knicks remembered from last year’s regular season.
He has produced his first two 20-point games of the season, and is starting to find his shot, shooting 42.5 percent in the two contests and making 5 of 14 3-point attempts.
The two-time All-Star had been playing through ankle pain that has lessened of late, The Post’s Stefan Bondy reported.
“I think the key to it is I’ve always been an inside-out player. And that’s how I’ve been more efficient,” Randle said. “So just gotta keep building off that and keep getting more efficient as the games go by.”
Thibodeau naturally didn’t want to make too much of these two wins, and he doesn’t believe the ball movement changed all that much either from the first four games.
What did happen was shots fell.
Sometimes, an offense can just look much better when that happens.
But one thing that did take place in the win over the Spurs was a lack of turnovers, just three all game.
The Knicks were one of the best teams in the league last year with a turnover percent of 13.1 percent, ranked fifth in the NBA.
It is 13.7 percent this year, and obviously went down significantly after the win over the Spurs.
“Now turnovers, that’s been a problem, so we’ve obviously gotta shore that up,” Thibodeau said. “But we got some easy baskets in transition, and guys were all looking to make the extra pass [against the Spurs]. … I thought we spaced [well] and guys were making the right reads, and I thought that was important.”
