The adjustments the Knicks make before a pivotal Game 3 could hint at how the rest of the series plays out — and the offseason

After Tuesday’s Game 2 victory, the Knicks travel south to Miami for two games against the rival Heat with the series tied 1-1 – interestingly enough, familiar territory for these franchises. The Knicks and Heat met in the playoffs every year between 1997 and 2000. In each of those four series, the teams split the first two games, creating monumental Game 3s. There was, however, one key difference: the Heat had homecourt advantage to open each series and it was the Knicks stealing a game in Miami. This time, it was the Heat who stole homecourt advantage and head back home looking to maintain it.

What have we learned through two games? What can we expect for this vital Game 3? Has this series become a must-win for New York? Let’s dive in.

The familiar swing game

If you read my series preview, you know that while I emphasized the volatility and importance of 3-point shooting, I also highlighted the Knicks’ ability to overcome it. The Knicks’ offense is unique in the NBA. From a shot profile perspective, it looks the part of an elite offense. The problem is that the shots do not go in at the rate of one. Yet, despite ranking 20th in true shooting percentage, 19th in 3-point percentage and dead last in assist percentage during the regular season, the Knicks’ offense tied for the third-best in the NBA. They did so by dominating the possession battle: they were the only team to rank in the top five in both offensive rebound percentage and turnover percentage.

In these playoffs, everything has changed. The Knicks’ elite offense now ranks as the worst of any remaining playoff team. They dominated the Cavaliers in spite of a porous offensive showing. That was acceptable for two reasons:1) the Cavaliers had the best defense in the NBA, and 2) the Knicks were extremely confident they could dominate the possession battle in a way that would give them a relative advantage. They were right, and cruised to a 4-1 series victory.

But this matchup against Miami is different. Despite them being a lowly 8-seed, they are much better prepared to take away how they Knicks are trying to win. This starts at the top with head coach Erik Spoelstra, who sits firmly at the top of the league’s best coaches. While most teams are a step behind, defending outside-in, Spoelstra has flipped the script and schemed his team to defend inside-out. He is betting that the Knicks’ 3-point efficiency won’t rise to a high enough degree to beat the Heat, so long as they are leaving the right guys open. He would rather live with Josh Hart or RJ Barrett shooting open 3-pointers than Mitchell Robinson dominating the offensive glass.

There is an important lesson to be learned here: as an underdog, you always want to increase the variance. An example would be a casual basketball player playing one-on-one against LeBron James. That player is extremely unlikely to win regardless of the circumstances, but his chances are astronomically higher if the game is played to 1 than if it’s played to 100. In a game to 1, anything could happen. The casual player could chuck up a contested shot and have it randomly go in. But once you increase the sample size, the true outcome is much more likely to occur. What Spoelstra has done so far in this series is equivalent to that. As we’ve discussed, there is a ton of volatility in 3-point shooting, especially for a below-average shooting team like the Knicks. New York built a volume-based back-up plan to poor shooting. Take that away and they’re just another team living or dying by the 3-pointer. 

So what can the Knicks do? They can lean into lineups with more shooting. The Knicks have four players who are average or better for their position(s): Jalen Brunson, Immanuel Quickley, Quentin Grimes and Julius Randle. In the regular season those four played 383 minutes together and had a +7.4 net rating. They were elite. In these playoffs, however, they have seen the court together for just five minutes (posting a laughable yet, largely meaningless, net rating of +85.6 in those minutes).

Most would argue that the reason for that is the continued excellence of Hart combined with the emergence of Barrett. They would be right. Hart was the team’s most important defender on Donovan Mitchell and is the guy Thibodeau trusts the most on Jimmy Butler. And Barrett has been everything to this team, so far removed from the player we saw in the regular season it is awe-inspiring. He is contributing in every aspect of the game. And, with the offense struggling, the looks he creates by driving into the teeth of the defense, drawing multiple defenders, and making the right plays have been essential to keeping his team in games.

But while they have been vital individually, as a pairing Hart and Barrett have simply not worked. In the regular season they played 349 minutes together posting a +1.1 net rating. This may not seem bad, but relatively, it was horrendous. This was the lowest net rating any Knicks’ rotation player had with Hart by a landslide. The second lowest on the team were Mitchell Robinson and Julius Randle, who each posted a +11.7 net rating playing with Hart. In the playoffs it’s been even worse, the Knicks’ net rating is -3.3 when Hart and Barrett are on the floor together. Yet they have the fourth-most minutes of any twosome.

Tom Thibodeau needs to find a way around this. I certainly am not calling for either player to be benched. But changes need to be made so their time on the court together is limited. The first change that needs to come is reinserting Grimes back into the starting lineup. It’s easy to forget, but the Knicks’ entire season turned on its head the second Grimes became a starter. Hart is a nice defender, but Grimes – no slouch himself – is up for the challenge. And any perceived gap between Grimes and Hart defensively is more than made up for by Grimes’ shooting gravity. There is no Knick better suited to exploit the Heat packing the paint and turning this series into a 3-point contest than Grimes.

Thibodeau often says, “It doesn’t matter who starts, it matters who finishes.” I desperately pray that Game 2 will put that moronic notion to bed. It is stupid in a vacuum, but with Thibodeau’s rotations it is another level of wrong. He rarely makes a substitution in the first seven or eight minutes of each half. That is at least fourteen minutes you are not seeing the court if you come off the bench. Grimes played just 26 minutes in Game 2, and his path to seeing those minutes was playing the final 15 – a game, mind you, the Knicks almost lost despite the Heat not having Butler. It does matter who starts. We saw why down the stretch Tuesday. Grimes’ shooting gravity opened up the court for his teammates. The Knicks scored 35 points in the 4th quarter, their most of the series.

There is another solution: they could go small. As great as Robinson was in the first round, the Heat have made him priority number one. They are determined to take away his impact on the offensive glass. The Heat also rarely deploy more than a single big, Bam Adebayo. As good as Adebayo is, he is not the type to exploit size advantages. Is it possible we see a lineup like Brunson-Grimes-Barrett-Hart-Randle? It should be. Randle is more than up to the challenge of taking on Adebayo, and this tactical change would pull Adebayo out of the paint, opening the court up even more. 

Defensively, the Knicks have remained sound, getting good individual performances from Robinson, Barrett, Quickley, Hart and Grimes. They are prepared and executing their assignments. For the most part, they give up the 3-pointers they prefer. In Game 1 the Heat exploited sloppy transition defense for a couple of easy baskets. Unsurprisingly, Thibodeau cleaned that up between the two games. They were much better getting back in Game 2. 

Butler, expected to be back for Game 3, is his own dilemma. He is the level of star who is going to get what he wants when he wants. You don’t stop a player like him, you just hope to make him work for what he gets. This is another reason starting Grimes is logical to me. As admirable an effort as Hart is putting forth, how much is he really stopping Butler? And if Butler is going to get his regardless, shouldn’t the Knicks emphasize advantages elsewhere?

Playoff series are chess matches. Even though the Knicks won the most recent game, it is still the Heat who should feel in the drivers’ seat. After cruising in Game 1, the Heat barely lost a Game 2 that saw the Knicks shoot 13 more free throws and 40% from 3. Oh yeah, they also didn’t have Butler. They should feel confident that their game plan is working. It’s Thibodeau’s turn to make a move. He cannot rest on the laurels of Tuesday’s relatively uninspiring victory; he needs to be proactive and do what he can to give his team the best chance of being better Saturday.

A must-win series?

On Saturday, December 3, 2022, the New York Knicks hit rock bottom. The NBA’s second most-valuable franchise hosted the rival Dallas Mavericks for a matinee. If you’re reading this, you probably remember this nightmare of a basketball game that saw the Knicks get run off of their home court. If you had told any Knicks fan on that day that the Knicks would win a playoff series this season, every one of us would have signed for that on the dotted line. The Knicks have an average rotation age of under 24. So why does it suddenly feel like losing this series would be a disappointment? The obvious answer is that nobody could have foreseen the 8-seed Heat upending the best team in the NBA. All of a sudden, the Knicks have (or had) homecourt advantage and are betting favorites to make the conference finals. 

There is more to it than that. Michael Jordan has impacted the NBA unlike any player before him. Not only did he impact how the game is played but also how it is perceived. His arc as a player has created the idea that team success is linear. You fail, and then you fail slightly better, and you keep failing until you get to the top of the mountain. It is a difficult journey but you are always moving up. But Jordan was the exception, not the rule. 

As Knicks fans learned in 2021, making the second round hardly guarantees the same level of success next season, even with a young roster where it is reasonable to bet on individual improvement almost across the board. The NBA is always evolving. Who knows how fast the rest of the league will catch up to the Knicks’ style of offensive effectiveness? The Heat are already laying a blueprint to slowing it down. And it’s not like the Knicks are the only team trying to improve. Trades could happen that shake up the hierarchy of the league. The Knicks need to capitalize on this opportunity. Being a favorite in a second-round series is not something that can be taken for granted. Ask the 2014 Pacers, 2019 Blazers, or 2022 Mavericks about that. 

This series will serve as a cold analysis for where this team is. The truth of the matter is that Leon Rose & Co. have one goal in mind: bring a championship back to New York. And while the Knicks do have a young roster, it is clear who this coach prefers. Brunson, Randle and Hart (all 26 or older) are in a tier of their own in the mind of Thibodeau. This is fine, but if he continues riding them as he has been and the result is a loss to an 8-seed, it will also serve as a reminder as to how far away the Knicks are from true contention.

I believe Rose is like most Knicks fans, I think he wants to keep this core and bet on internal development. But with Thibodeau as the coach, we are seeing that there are real limits to how high guys like Grimes, Quickley, Obi Toppin – hell, even Barrett – can fly. Is it reasonable for the front office to stand pat after a loss in this series? Is it realistic for them to expect multiple players (or any) to make a leap big enough to move the Knicks to the next level? I don’t think it is.

If this team, which clearly loves one another and enjoys playing together, wants to stick together for the long haul, this series is as close to a must-win as it gets. Win this series, and give Boston or Philadelphia a tough battle in the Eastern Conference Finals, and there’s a realistic path forward for this group. The Knicks may not even need another star. Maybe they’d just be another Hart trade away from title contention. But if they lose, I believe there will be real questions about the ceiling of this core. And, with a title serving as the ultimate goal, that leads me to only one inevitable solution: consolidation. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.