Six games in: The Knicks’ familiar strengths and weaknesses are clear
The Knicks have only played the first six games of their 2022-23 slate, but some trends from that small sample seem like they’re likely to continue all season long.
It feels about right, to be honest, the New York Knicks’ 3-3 record through six games. Three wins against teams they expected to beat and three losses against teams who expect to beat them. Competitive losses, for the most part. All three on the road. Comfortable wins, for the most part. All three at home. So why does it feel like these six games have more than six games’ worth of lessons to teach us? Because they may as well have been scripted to simultaneously expose a fundamental weakness and emphatically highlight a still underutilized strength of this Knicks roster.
This team’s greatest weakness is point of attack defense. We knew this before the season, sure. We knew it in the same way that your average New Yorker knows that lions are dangerous. Now, after watching Ja Morant and Donovan Mitchell feast, we know it on a far deeper level: with the ear-twitching sensitivity of an antelope, grazing, suddenly frozen by an evolutionary sense of hungry, unblinking eyes, hiding in the long grass.
“EVAN FOURNIER IS FOOD,” these six games screamed at us. Through a megaphone. Inches from our ear canals.
“SO IS JALEN BRUNSON, AND OCCASIONALLY, WHEN HE’S NOT ENGAGED, OR IN CERTAIN MATCHUPS, RJ BARRETT,” they bellowed.
“…BUT WE’D PREFER FOURNIER,” they added, for clarity.
Unfortunately, the Knicks’ best solution to the ol’ Fournier-is-food problem, Quentin Grimes, is currently sidelined with a sore foot. When healthy, he’s such an obvious answer to replace Fournier and offer some token resistance to the NBA’s apex guard threats (I only had to re-watch these six games 14 times each to come up with that). I’m sure Tom Thibodeau, God of Game Film, won’t hesitate to make the change when he gets the chance.
The other option, of course, is Immanuel Quickley. There are pros and cons to the Quickley-for-Fournier move, which I will discuss in detail here. Con: Quickley is four inches shorter than Fournier. Pro: Quickley is better at every facet of defense — navigating ball screens, chasing shooters off-ball, executing consecutive help rotations, defensive rebounding, disrupting passing lanes, breathing defensive air, having a defensively Google-able name — than Fournier. It’s a tough call.
Which brings us nicely from a fixable defensive weakness to a criminally underutilized two-way strength.
Last season, the Knicks’ bench was 23rd in the league in minutes played and fifth in net rating. One of the best benches in the league was used far too sparingly. This season, the Knicks’ bench is 15th in minutes played and ninth in net rating. It’s a much less jarring discrepancy than last season through six games, but it’s early, and worth monitoring. Roster depth is about as useful as a bucket full of holes if that depth can’t get on the court.
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