Steve Popper: Knicks need to get off to better starts
The Knicks' Jalen Brunson warms up before a game against the Jazz on Wednesday in Salt Lake City, Utah. Credit: Getty Images/Chris Gardner
The Knicks took the floor Wednesday night with an opportunity to serve up the evidence of every critic of the starting lineup decisions. Josh Hart was in street clothes and the opponent was a Utah Jazz team intent on accumulating ping-pong balls, not victories.
Landry Shamet stepped into the starting lineup and the social media and statistical arguments could take hold. All the Knicks needed to do was wipe out the Jazz. And then they took the floor at the Delta Center and were embarrassed for the opening 12 minutes, giving up 41 points and falling behind by 15 at the end of the quarter. They later trailed by 18 before coming back for a 134-117 win.
Against the Clippers two days earlier, the Knicks were down 9-0 before the game was two minutes old. A day before that against the Lakers, the Knicks were down 5-0 and trailed by eight after one quarter.
The Knicks (42-25) built a roster with championship aspirations with a rotation that was expected to be as deep as any in the NBA. So why don’t the combinations work?
The statistics will tell you this wasn’t an anomaly. If you didn’t like the first-quarter net rating in the two Los Angeles stops of -26.2, then the -70.3 grouping of Shamet with the other four starters in the first quarter Wednesday was not going to please you.
The Knicks have fared better with Hart on the floor with the other usual members of the starting five than with Shamet taking his place. So what can explain how the starting unit has faltered at the beginning of games, particularly of late?
The Knicks have their own theory.
“Yeah, two things,” coach Mike Brown said. “We’re turning it over to start and our opponents are not feeling us. And if they do, it’s because we’re reaching and sending them to the free-throw line. We have to take away the three to start the game. The last three games, teams — bang, bang, bang — hit two or three threes like in the first minute of the half. We’re not getting to shooters and they’re not feeling us on our closeouts.
“If we do that and we take care of the ball so we’re not fueling their transition, we should start games better. But we’re not even giving ourselves a chance and we’re letting our opponents feel good about the way that the game is starting. So it’s been addressed. It will continue to be addressed and we’re going to keep scrambling until we can find out a way to slow that area down.”
It isn’t just fans kicking their televisions at the start of games who have wondered about the lineup configurations. Brown began the season with Mitchell Robinson in the starting lineup and Hart coming off the bench, a strategy the Knicks turned to under Tom Thibodeau last season in the playoffs — albeit with Hart pushing it as he struggled.
No one has struggled more than Mikal Bridges lately — he's averaging 4.0 points per game in the last three games, shooting 5-for-23 in that span — but it’s certainly not just him. Even Jalen Brunson hasn’t been immune (maybe not as much as he blames himself), but he was 1-for-8 with three turnovers in the first half before scoring 15 points in the third quarter Wednesday and finishing with 28 to help spark the turnaround. Aggressiveness was the difference.
“A couple of things, but I think most importantly just not being passive,” Brunson said. “The turnovers were just non-aggressive, kind of B.S. That’s what [ticked] me off the most. Shots are going to go in, shots are not going to go in. Me not turning the ball over in the second half was great timing.”
It’s not just the start that has raised eyebrows. Brown has taken to closing games with Shamet, sitting Hart for the entire fourth quarter against the Lakers and Bridges for the entire fourth quarter against Utah. And the lineup may be shuffled again Friday as the Knicks close out the five-game road trip in Indiana with Hart (left knee soreness) and Karl-Anthony Towns (bilateral knee soreness) listed as questionable.
What’s not questionable is that even shorthanded, the Knicks should have what it takes to not only beat the Pacers but to avoid the sluggish starts that have had Brown frantically and frustratedly calling timeouts minutes into each game.
“I've just seen too many times when I don’t, it seems like it gets worse, and the next thing you know we’re down 16-4,” Brown said. “I’m going to do whatever I can to not let that happen. The tough part about it is, as we go down, I’m down timeouts. I don’t like doing it, but if I have to, I will to try to wake them up.”
The wakeup call has come, maybe a little too late. But the regular season is heading toward its conclusion, and soon we’ll all know if the Knicks have heeded it.
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.
