Knicks 133, Kings 104: Losing streak, schmoosing streak

Playing some of their best ball all season, the Knicks won in a rout without Jalen Brunson. That may seem an outlier. It’s not

Now THAT, folks, is a basketball team.

The Knicks stormed into California and picked up their first win since Jalen Brunson went down with an ankle injury, dismantling the Sacramento Kings 133-104. But was this more than just a victory? Did the Knicks lay a foundation that could guide them through the rest of this Brunson-less stretch? And maybe perhaps beyond?? Let’s dive in.

Deuce’s wild

Miles McBride came into this game struggling to put the ball in the basket. In fact, struggling may be an understatement. McBride was 4-for-26 from the floor against Golden State and both L.A. teams, three very tough defenses. But those games did offer an important lesson, one emblematic of what we’ve seen all season – McBride played more than half the minutes available in three games his team lost by a combined 26 points, but in his minutes the Knicks outscored their opponents by two. 

While it’s easy to assume otherwise, McBride’s impact is not predicated on his shot falling. The space he provides teammates is tremendously valuable; defenders respect his shot whether it’s dropping or not. But what puts him over the top as a spacer is his keen understanding of floor balance and court mapping. On the other side of the ball, he’s a pit bull at the point of attack and improving rapidly off the ball.

Fittingly enough, McBride came out firing against a Kings team that entered last night 14th in defense, nailing his first five shots and scoring 15 in the first quarter to help set the tone for the visiting team. By the end of the quarter the Knicks were up 15. They didn’t stop there.

WingStop special

The Kings made a couple of pushes to get the deficit around 10, but never got closer than that.

Leading the way was the Knick defense, led by Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby and Josh Hart (with major help from McBride, Mitchell Robinson and dare I say Karl-Anthony Towns), which held the Kings’ trio of Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan and Malik Monk to just 16-of-38 from the field and 49 points.

As I’ll discuss later, the Knicks have a path to a good offense even without Brunson. But the teams’ identity HAS to be its defense. With McBride in for Brunson, there is simply too much talent for anything less than an elite defense, even with Towns manning the middle. The other four players should be like an offensive line protecting the quarterback, so that Towns’ lack of rim protection doesn’t bite them while his defensive rebounding prowess can be amplified.

Last night we saw this in spades. This game felt comfortable the whole way because even when the Knicks went through (few and far between) droughts, their defense never let the Kings get anything going up until the moment Tom Thibodeau emptied his bench up 29 midway through the fourth. You know it’s a good game when even Thibodeau thinks it’s over that early.

I had a vision and what I saw was beautiful

There’s an uncomfortable conversation that’s been a long time coming. The Knicks have performed *meaningfully* better without Jalen Brunson this season than with him. The first row of numbers below are the Knicks’ ratings when the captain’s been off the floor; the second are from when he’s played.

Would it be reasonable to use this data and say the team is BETTER without Brunson? Of course not. For starters, all of the best metrics rate Brunson as one of the most consistently impactful players in the NBA. But also, these on/off nets can be noisy, especially with someone who’s played such a high percentage of his team's minutes.

What would be reasonable to hypothesize, however, is that the gap between the Knicks with and without him is smaller than it should be. A player as impactful as Brunson should have their absence felt, even if only for a few minutes. So far it hasn’t. Why?

We know it’s not because of a strong bench. The Celtics, for example, rock a lofty +6.3 net rating without Jayson Tatum. But they’re a juggernaut, not only because they have multiple other stars in their starting lineup, but also a terrific bench including Sixth Man of the Year favorite Payton Pritchard.

My theory is that with Brunson, the Knicks haven’t yet maxed out, while without him they’re forced to play a different (better) style of ball that comes closer to maximizing the players on the court. Brunson is such a skilled advantage creator that Thibodeau sees some of the egalitarian offense non-Brunson lineups are forced to use as superfluous. Why design a play with moving parts and risk a turnover to create an advantage when Brunson can just do it by himself?

That style of offense comes at a cost, though. No player on the Knicks has a wider negative differential of 3-point rate (the rate at which your team attempts 3-pointers when you’re on the court) than Brunson. This problem has been exacerbated by routinely suboptimal spacing around him. If you stick a non-spacer out there, the defense will comfortably have his defender aggressively pre-rotating. So now not only are guys like Bridges, Anunoby and Towns not having actions run to put them in advantageous positions, when Brunson does get them the ball they find themselves having to beat multiple defenders or just shoot over them. 

The only player to benefit from this paradigm is Josh Hart, the “non-shooter.” Smart defenses attempt to funnel the ball to him beyond the arc and live with the results. This leads to a slew of open shots and much more comfortable pathways to the rim. But aside from Hart, no other Knick starter has been maximized this season. What we saw last night was a glimpse of what a team trying to maximize its entire rotation can look like. The Knicks couldn’t default to Brunson, so they had to find ways to create advantages organically. Plays where it wasn’t dribble penetration but rather quick ball-movement and smart man-movement that set up a great look were more the norm than ever.

Because the Knicks didn’t have Brunson to create his patented floater or midrange turnaround, they were forced to hunt more for threes: a whopping 48% of their shots were from deep, one of their highest rates of the season, to say nothing of a defense that is obviously going to improve swapping Brunson for McBride.

All of this is to say that the Knicks have a real opportunity here. There are some who scoff at the idea the Knicks can win a championship. But I believe that’s only because we haven’t truly seen this team maximized yet – at least not when their most important player is on the court.

But what if the Knicks use this time to instill these egalitarian schemes and principles? What if instead of being carried by one spectacular player, the Knicks start seeing All-Star performances from Towns, Bridges, Anunoby AND Hart? All in the same game?? Is there a world where Brunson can return to a team more ready to win with him than before? One that actually leans on him less so his surrounding pieces can give him more of what they have to offer? Or will this be another year we lament Brunson’s lack of help in the postseason, cementing him as New York’s very own Sisyphus? Forever destined to push a boulder up a hill that will never reach the top, all by his lonesome? Only time will tell.