The Knicks aren’t just winning games. They’re stomping teams

If you feel like you’re seeing something you’ve never seen before . . . you kinda are

That photo of the Knick bench? That’s been the story of the season so far. Mostly that group watching mostly the five starters and Deuce McBride mostly pummeling the opposition, with the bench and a sizable lot of Knicks fans hoping for extended garbagé time — and mostly being left hoping.

Two nights ago, the Knicks led the Magic by 22 points in the first half and as many as 37. Orlando’s pig-on-a-lipstick fourth quarter made the final difference 15 and kept it from falling under the definition of a “blowout,” which we’re using for games decided by 20 or more. Nearly half the Knicks’ wins have been blowouts, an exceptional rate compared to the league’s best teams as well as the top Knick teams of all-time. What does it all mean? One step at a time.

Not only has New York enjoyed blowouts in six of their 13 wins, there’ve been three other games they led by 20+ but won by less: in addition to Tuesday and Orlando, they led Brooklyn by 21 in the third quarter of a game they won by two and were up 24 in the first half of what ended up a 16-point win in Phoenix. That means the Knicks have had a 20-point lead in 69% of their Ws. Nice. Nice.

They’re still the slowest team in the Association as far as pace, and while everyone and their mother kvetches about the defense cratering the Knicks have very quietly entered the top-10 in opponent points per game. But it’s the offense that provides this rocket ship most of its fuel. And it’s the 3-ball driving much of that offense, whether via made threes or the huge tracts of land that the mere threat of the three opens up cutters and drivers working within the arc.  

Yet while the Knicks are second in 3-point accuracy, they’re only 18th in 3-point tries. So if their dominance is simply a matter of “See the three, shoot the three” multiplied ad nauseum, then the league’s other top teams, all of who play more up-tempo than New York, should be at or beyond that level. Spoiler: they’re not.

No one is hammering the league the way these Knicks are, and they could keep on keeping on for a while. Somehow the Knicks spend most of the next month playing nobody, then go another month never traveling farther than Philadelphia. It’s not all glitz and glamour: also remaining the rest of this season are four non-contiguous stretches of three out of four away from home, four of five, five of six and seven of eight. But at least for the next couple months there could be a lot more happy time.

Because these Knicks aren’t just sonning teams at a remarkable rate for 2024, they’re doing so at a rate no Knick team has — ever. Let’s compare their rate of blowouts to some of the greatest regular-season modern, Golden and Silver Age Knick teams ever (if you’re wondering why no 1950’s Knick powerhouses, it’s because they weren’t really powerhouses, relatively speaking – the first two Knickerbocker teams to reach the Finals had net ratings barely above zero. Also, if you think the game has changed between the ‘90s and now, remember not only was there no 3-pointer in the ‘50s, but the ‘52 Knicks finished third in the league in shooting . . . at 38%. There’s apples versus oranges and then there’s the world before the moon or liquid water existed). 

Through 21 games, this year’s Knicks already have more blowout wins than the ‘97 Knicks did all year (4) and nearly as many as 2013 (10). Ahh, but what might have been: last year, despite Julius Randle missing the last four months, OG Anunoby and Mitchell Robinson out for extended stretches and the entire team battling the Black Death by the end of the playoffs, the ‘23 Knicks had as many blowout wins as the vaunted ‘93 squad and one more than ‘94.

Some of that has to do with the compounding effect the 3-pointer and faster pacing has had on such stats; it’s easier to go up 20 when you’re mostly taking threes and twos, as opposed to twos and ones like the 20th-century Knicks. But if it’s easier to build bigger leads now, doesn’t it stand to reason it’s also easier to cut into them? When those when-men-were-men Pat Riley teams went up 25, given all the rhapsodizing about their defense and will to win, why would it be any harder for them to stay up 20+ against foes who also mostly eschewed the three?

The title-winning teams are the pinnacle of this lot, natch. In 1970 and 1973 New York won 19 blowouts each season, a third of their total wins. The ‘70 champs have the highest net rating in franchise history at +7.9. This year’s team? The one that added one starter in June, another at the start of training camp and is still without their two best defensive bigs? +7.0. Not bad at all.

Usually this is when I examine the runes more closely and tell you what to make of all of this. It’s too early for that. Maybe just enjoy it? The Knicks are arguably the best offense in the NBA. Read that again. Read it out loud. Say it proud! It’s been literally 35-50 years since you could say those words without scaring your loved ones.  

That Magic team the Knicks blew out Tuesday? The one with the #1 defensive rating even after the romp? The Knicks had as many points after three quarters as the Magic did after four. Usually there’s a conventional range we look for from championship teams, a Goldilocks zone where the right balance between scoring and stifling defines the favorites. But in sports as in nature, exceptionality is sometimes enough. Remember the 2000 Baltimore Ravens?

Led by a head coach renowned for his work as an record-setting offensive coordinator in Minnesota, the Ravens were about as effective on offense as the ‘90s Knicks. But they were so, so good on the other side of the ball – historically good – that was, for one year, at least, enough. Now we have the Knicks, led by a head coach renowned for his work initially as a defensive coordinator, playing so, so good on the other side of the ball — historically good — that one wonders, For this year, this one year — is it enough?

I don’t think the Knicks are anything to be worried about defensively, and if this is what the offense can do revved up after only two calendar months together, imagine the basketballing behemoth they could be by the start of the playoffs. It’s too early to draw any conclusions from what we’ve seen so far. But the way this team is cold-cocking one fool after another, it’s fun to imagine . . .