SPANISH HARLEM – The New York Knicks sit at 2-2 after losing to the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday. It was an ugly 2nd half of basketball for the Knicks after going into halftime with 14-point lead. It was a tail of 2 halves that saw a mighty offense struggle to score points down the stretch. It was definitely frustrating for fans, especially after seeing them struggle in much the same way against the Miami Heat a game before. Let’s assess what we have after these 4 games and what they need to do to improve.
OFFENSE
At times, the ball moves the way it should and the way Mike Brown expects of his players in this offense. It’s beautiful to watch when a pass is made to a wide-open shooter and the ball goes in from 3-point land (though they have missed a lot of open shots this season as well). Then there are times when they watch as Jalen Brunson is looking to get his own shot off. This is not a good offense because I’m sure they know that Brunson can get to anywhere he wants on the court but that shouldn’t stop the players from doing what they should be doing on offense.
It will certainly take time for them to master this “Pace and Space” offense that Brown wants to run. You can’t expect an offense that revolved around Brunson to suddenly become this “share the wealth” system. With more time, you will get better results and more trust from everyone involved. There will be times when you let Brunson or KAT cook but it should be something done during the game and more of the 4th quarter of close games. For now, expect them to dabble with both before becoming what we hope will be a high-octane system that utilizes each player’s possible potential.
ROTATION
While many of the names remain the same in the starting offense, we have not seen the same lineup twice to start the game. This is something we never saw from Tom Thibodeau, and it is refreshing to see how Brown is taking chances early in the season to see what works and what doesn’t. So far, every person that has started, showed that they can play well with the rest of starting lineup. We have yet to see Mitchell Robinson, and he will get the bulk of the starts when he is healthy but it’s certainly exciting to see Brown experimenting early on with what he has.
More players are getting minutes, and the rotation is deep. As we saw, any player can potentially get on the floor at any given time. This will keep the guys engaged and should add to positive chemistry. The more each individual player contributes, the better this group will become. It’s still early and they will have the ups and down but when it finally clicks, it should be fun to watch.
That’s it for now, please come back tomorrow for more great content from Jackson Sternberg.
