Knicks' offense is becoming productive, but they think it can be much better
Knicks head coach Mike Brown reacts during the first half against the Washington Wizards at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 3. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Not long after the Knicks had finished off a blowout win over the Nets, Mike Brown was detailing some of the lessons and how far along the team is in learning the new system. He said that if it all comes together, “then we’ll have a chance to be a pretty good offensive team.”
After a sluggish start, the Knicks have jumped all the way to second in the NBA in offensive rating, scored 271 points in the last two games, scored 160 points in a four-quarter span in those two games and have run off four straight wins.
It isn’t as if the Knicks didn’t do this before. They piled up 272 points in two games early last season and finished the season fifth in offensive rating. With a new head coach and a new system, though, this has been an impressive showing.
However, even if there is pressure on him and the team to live up to high expectations, Brown wasn’t going to make too much of it yet.
"Yeah, we’re talented,” he said. “No matter what we do on the floor, we’re going to have the ability to score. But you take the regular season and you prepare yourself for the postseason. If you just go out there and play the wrong way and win, we still probably are going to score because we’re talented and we’ve got a lot of guys that can score. But it’s not going to help us later on.
“There are things that we have to continue to try to get better at in terms of our recognition and stuff like that out on the floor and our pace, get the ball in bounds on a make, not walking the ball up, getting right to our stuff. If they take this away, bam, we’ve got counters. Go to the counter.
"There are a lot of little things. It’s hard to explain to you guys to a certain degree, but our guys know it. We’ll show it to them. But I do think we can be better. And that’s what we should all be striving for is to be better. There’s still a lot of room for us to grow.”
The Knicks (6-3) are only nine games in right now, so there certainly is room to grow. And there already has been clear growth from the start of the season to this point. In the last five games, the Knicks are first in offensive rating and assist/turnover ratio.
For the entire season, they lead the NBA in effective field goal percentage and three-point percentage on catch-and-shoot opportunities, a staple of what Brown is seeking for the team in general and Jalen Brunson in particular, to ease the burden on him.
“Whatever expectations you guys put on it, we don’t have expectations,” Brunson said. “We’re just looking to get better every single day, and with that being said, you can’t just say, 'Hey, let’s get better at this.’ It’s about not being complacent and being more fluent in the stuff we run where everything is an instinct and we’re not thinking about what we’re doing. Everything’s a reaction and it comes seamless like that, so we’re working towards that. So yeah, the ball’s going through the hoop, but we can be a lot better.”
Karl-Anthony Towns went from openly questioning his role in the preseason to seeming lost in the new system early in the season to being a nominee for Eastern Conference Player of the Week on Monday.
In the first four games of the season, Towns averaged 17.0 points and shot 35.2%. In the five games since then, he’s up to 23.6 points per game and 49.4% shooting. The adaptation still is a work in progress. Towns hasn’t shot — or converted — as many three-point field goals as the Knicks would like. And with Mitchell Robinson back and making an impact, Towns is still shuttling between positions.
“We want to keep trying to move him around so teams can’t just sit at the top of the floor,” Brown said. “If we can do that, then I think eventually the game’s going to be a lot easier for him. Because he’s going to be in places where teams aren’t used to doubling. One time he’s here, now he’s there, now he’s here. So that’s what we plan on doing with him. And he’s getting a little more comfortable every time we step on the floor.”
Maybe Brown is right. They’re pretty good now. It can be better and they believe it will be.
“I think everything we're doing is still a work in progress and we're trying to — all of us are trying to figure out how we can impact in the system most efficiently,” Towns said. “I'm glad we're learning through wins.''
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.
