Knicks' Josh Hart has become dangerous from three-point range despite finger issue
Knicks guard Josh Hart reacts in the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Orlando Magic at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 7. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
LAS VEGAS — The Knicks have come to expect a lot of things from Josh Hart. But if you caught a glimpse — and we don’t recommend it if you’re eating — of the mangled ring finger on his shooting hand, making teams pay for allowing him to shoot from three-point range would not be on the list.
After injuring the finger in the playoffs against Boston last season, he played through it and shot only 18.2% from outside the arc in the series against Indiana. He injured it again while getting ready for this season and came into camp with the finger still bent in directions that aren’t meant to be. The move to the bench he took in the postseason continued at the start of this season.
The problem was that as valuable as he was, the shooting struggles made him a glitch in the offense. Teams shifted their centers over to guard him and dared him to shoot. And somehow, through a mix of hard work and the addition of shooting coach Peter Patton to the new coaching staff, Hart has returned to the starting lineup, has done all of the little things that make him valuable and is shooting from the perimeter as well as he has in his career.
He’s also letting the coaches who dared him to shoot know that the strategy might not be advisable right now.
Jalen Brunson had advice for Hart, noting, “He should shut up and let them keep leaving him open.”
“Yeah, Darko [Rajakovic, the Raptors' coach] yelled at me [Tuesday] not to say anything to him,” Hart said. “But I mean, for me, I’m shooting the ball with confidence. It’s different in terms of style when I have a big on me.
“Last year was a little bit more of if I had a big on me and it was more of a facilitating role, and kind of switching to the five offensively. This year, continuing at the three, four, whatever I am, playing off the catch, still getting some pick-and-roll aspects of it, but now it’s more attack and look to score and not as much facilitating.”
Hart entered Saturday's NBA Cup quarterfinal against Orlando shooting 39.8% from three-point range, up from 33.3% last season and 31.0% two years ago. The last time he shot like this was after the trade that brought him to the Knicks in the 2022-23 season as he connected on 51.9% of his three-pointers in 25 games (27-for-52).
More importantly, he was shooting 44.7% from outside the arc since moving into the starting lineup and the Knicks were 8-1 in that span. Hart averaged 16.4 points, 9.6 rebounds and 5.7 assists in the nine games.
“I tell you, it’s interesting to continue to see teams put their five on him,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “I think he’s shooting close to 40% from three, if not that, I don’t know exactly. They keep going in and people keep leaving him open, because they’re trying to put their fives on him. Maybe down the road, they might think he can shoot a little bit, but he works really hard at it.
“It’s no surprise to us that he’s shooting as well as he is. A five is not used to guarding a guy out on the perimeter. A five wants to go help. When we create paint touches with ball reversals, it’s natural for a five to start drifting toward that rim. Our guys did a good job of finding him with sprays and he’s knocking them down.”
Hart, who wears a brace on the finger during the game, gives much of the credit to the arrival of Patton.
“It’s definitely feeling better,” Hart said. “I’m working with Pete every day on my shot . . . I think, I’ve said it before, it was something vital to me to have a shooting coach here on staff that I could work with every single day. I had one before, but he lived in Los Angeles and I was playing 38 minutes a game, so it was tough on those off days to really focus on the mechanics. Now, with Pete, I’m able to work on the mechanics every day, even if it’s just a little bit, but just the feeling, the repetition.”
Even if the shots don’t fall, Brown is confident that he’s still getting enough from Hart to keep him on the floor and the ball in his hands.
“He reminds me of Andre Iguodala from the sense that if you don’t really understand basketball, then it’s hard to really appreciate their game,'' Brown said.
"Both those guys, sometimes you look at them and go, ‘He’s not really this. He’s not that. He can't do this. He can’t do that.’ It’s the opposite. They can do everything. Josh can do everything. There’s just some things he does that are elite and some things that he does pretty good.
"That’s what Josh is. He does everything that you want him to do, not just offensively, but defensively, too — guarding one through five. Same offensively . . . When you have a player with the IQ of Andre or Josh, then good things can happen for your whole team and it makes your job easier as a head coach.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
