NBA in Threes: Devin Booker drops 40; Lakers are red-hot
By Jade Johnson
New York Knicks
My husband declared to me in the opening week of the NBA season that the New York Knicks will make the playoffs this season. We’re talking about a team that finished at the very bottom of the Eastern Conference last season with a franchise-worst tying 17-65 record. To say I’m very skeptical that they can climb seven spots to slip into even an 8th seed position.
While their 6-1 record so far seems to bear out my position on the Knicks this year, it is of note that going into their matchup with the Sacramento Kings, the Knicks had held leads in the 4th quarter in four of their five losses. This team isn’t as bad as their record suggests. That said, against Sacramento, they clearly showed just how far they need to come for their last game of 2020 to be played after April 15th.
It would have been good for the Knicks to capture a win in this game as out of their next seven games, five will be played against teams that also missed the playoffs last year. Following that, 11 straight games are against 2019 playoff teams before the meet the Kings again on December 13th.
These next seven games could very well make or break the Knicks season. If they can’t get wins against to say, four of their next five non-playoff matchups and then they go on to lose to most of the teams in the following 11 games that should be able to handle them with little trouble, the Knicks could find themselves behind even the 8-17 record they had through 25 games last season.
So, what do the Knicks need to do?
For starters, they’re committing too many personal fouls and not taking good enough care of the ball. With 7:00 to play in the fourth quarter, the Knicks were already in the penalty and they are 28th in the assist to turnover category. Which is saying quite a bit because the Knicks are playing with pretty good ball movement offensively.
Free throws are also a big issue. The Knicks are dead last in the league in free throw percentage at 66.8 percent. Think back to the stat above, the Knicks had leads in the 4th quarter in 4 of their 5 losses coming into the Kings matchup. What a difference 5 or 6 made free throws might have made in those games.
RJ Barrett alone has missed 22 free throws already this season and is shooting an atrocious 48 percent from the charity stripe. The other player for the Knicks most likely to get to the line, Julius Randle has missed 11 and is shooting better at 60 percent but that’s still too low by my standards.
Good things the Knicks are doing include leading the league in offensive rebounds and second-chance points through seven games. That being said, a lot of the Knicks’ struggles this season are going to come down the fact that they’re just a young, inexperienced team. Outside of Marcus Morris who’s 30, Wayne Ellington who is 32 and Taj Gibson who is 34, no one on this roster is older than 25 years old; most are 21 or younger.
After missing a few good looks, they don’t have the maturity to continue to shoot with confidence as if the next shot is going down. They hesitate and it throws off their rhythm.
At the end of the day, only time and experience will hone this team into one living up to its potential. There’s a lot of talent on this team. If the Knicks’ front office can manage to avoid making knee jerk decisions and give Fitzdale the chance over a few seasons to develop this young core, the Knicks could very well be a playoff team again in the not too distant future. I just don’t see it happening this season.