Five Things Knicks Need To Do This Season To Be Back-To-Back Champions | NY Got Game

What's up everybody? Welcome back to another edition of New York Got Game. Dexter Henry, Ryan Fonseca. We are done with summer. Summer is over. You see it's hoodie season. If you're watching this, you can see it's hoodie season. I have pants on, not shorts. I wore a hoodie in today. That don't sound like you didn't have anything on. I'm glad you put pants on in the studio. That would make sense for you to have pants on. No, but usually I've had shorts during the summer. I work out my legs, you know what I'm saying? A lot of people now. Yeah, but now it happened fast. Last week we still had like shorts and t-shirts on and then this week like the winds are 20 miles an hour. I got a hoodie on, pants. Like it's crazy. It's ridiculous. Fall came quick. Life comes at you fast. Fall came at you fast. Yes, so it's very interesting. Season's changing but that also means we're just already a couple of days away from the start of training camp. Speaking of coming at you fast. So season came too fast but the defending champs, defending title is going to come at them fast and we're going to talk about a lot about that today and what we're going to do are talk about the five most important things that the Knicks need to do in order to repeat. We're going to talk about that before we get to that real quick because I didn't get a chance to talk to my guy Brian about this. We talked a little bit about this over the phone yesterday but the news coming out that there's some stagnation in the contract talks between Karl-Anthony Towns and the Knicks. Are you concerned at all or are you kind of like me where it's like yeah man this is business at this time of year and something is going to get done eventually. I can't tell you when but something will get done. I found the timing interesting. I know you did also. I did. I talked about this yesterday with Steph. Yeah and when we look at reports we always have to consider who benefits from this. That was more beneficial for Kat's team to have that out there than the Knicks especially given the details of hey the Knicks would like this to happen for less than a match which we already we assumed that but we knew that pretty much and with Kat and this is why we outlined this. Go back a few weeks. I don't remember exactly when it was. It may have been earlier in August or later July but we went on a deep dive about how this could play out what Kat's representation could be looking for and taking less is relative to what. If it's less than the max then it could be a little bit less and still be a lot of money but if it's less than what Kat's been used to that's where it gets difficult because Kat has been a better player since the trade has become more valuable since the Knicks got him has become a champion since the Knicks got him and are you going to look at him and say hey take less money just to keep this thing together and if you're Kat this is your last time to cash out so I know there's going to be fans who say hey take $40 even though he can get 60 right now like if he opts in 60 plus but hey just take 40 million dollars you know be grateful and all these different things and dog whistles and what have you but the reality is he's become a more valuable player this is the last chance to cash in probably on this type of a deal this type of a big contract so I think that if you're Kat and we said this even last week or the week before you want to get a deal done now you don't want to have to play this out it gets weird uh and you know that Jalen Brunson's gonna get his money OG Ananobis gonna get his money the Knicks also have to get this done or get clarity on the situation at least they can figure out what to do with Josh Hart so I think there's a lot of interesting elements to this but I totally get it from team Kat's side being like hey we want to make sure that some element of pressure is put on here so that makes a lot of sense to me from a business standpoint I do think if I had to guess I would I'd be surprised if they don't come to terms I don't know what those terms would be Kat has to get his money though he's earned it I don't would be surprised if it doesn't if it doesn't happen either I thought the point that me and Steph talked about which is a really interesting one is that when you look and Steph made this point when you look at Kat last year and how he played when he and this was reported that he was struggling with the rumors of being traded right this is another thing yeah and then when that was done with he played so much better he was relaxed and then the point you made about value I think that's a very interesting one and a good one in that value is what matters here and for those of y'all out there that want to say oh well he's a champion you know being in New York and being a champion is worth more than getting more money here's the thing and I always talk about labor and how it isn't working this is labor and why what none of us should ever be against anybody trying to get the most money they can right especially in a situation where when you're a professional athlete you can do what you love at a high level for a limited amount of time I'm never going to be against people not getting the most they can now the salary cap rules are trying to keep the stuff together and there'll be some give and take and you'll see who wants what and how much they want it on both sides but to sit there and just say ah man he should take 20 million dollars less I'm like okay that's easy for you to say because it's not your money right right if it was your money you had the limited time as an athlete to play at a high level I guarantee most of y'all would not be saying that and I think the people that say that are being very disingenuous and probably not to say all y'all some of y'all are probably wrong I don't I don't necessarily believe all that and again it's easy to count other people's money when it is not yours so I think we should just all keep that in mind and ask yourself if you're saying that why are you kind of pro the millionaires or not the millionaires and and if I'm cat like I just got married a month ago I'll be damned if I'm taking a pay cut after that weddings are expensive like and not saying that I know we're not saying that like he's gonna be struggling or anything like for real people we get that but again we look at the money that these sports teams make and the nicks make or any other sports team in the businesses period dollars in the business is we say when things for them is business as well as business for the players too and they have a right to cash in just the same way these billionaire owners do as well within the salary cap structure that exists in certain sports so I'm never going to be against that I think when you're dismissive to just say ah he should just take this and take less I I think it's just a little bit of not understanding the limitations of what professional athletes have to do with their time their money their body to stay at a high level and only do it for a short period of time so you know that's my thoughts on that we'll see how that all plays out but let us get into the top five things that nicks need to do in order to repeat this year and I want to say this there is something clear and obvious at the top that is the most important thing that the nicks have to do we're going to go from the bottom to the top but the most important thing obviously people is health if the nicks are not healthy or they do not have some of the similar health luck that they did last year because that matters a ton in teams winning championships I don't care who the team is you need some luck in terms of staying healthy your best players staying healthy and being ready when the time comes that matters the most nothing trumps health like health is undoubtedly number one so just so people know someone says this we took that out of this conversation because we think it's kind of obvious that health is number one so we wanted to look at five other things that the nicks must do in order to repeat right so health is understood nothing is going to trump health health it is the number one reason for sure but for the purposes of this exercise we decided to remove health because I think all of you out there understand that health okay now that we've said that Brian and I we came up with a list and we ranked these coming in at number five we're going to talk about defense and I know sometimes we like to ignore defense and act like it's not not us to be clear I do not yeah you know a lot of people focus on putting the ball in the basket we will get to offense we'll get to certain things specifically in offense but defense for me if the nicks are going to defend this title and try to go back to back they have to remain a top 10 defense they have to play defense the way they did post-January until the time they won the title they finished seventh in defense last year Brian allowing 112.3 points per 100 possessions right that was better than what we saw from them the year before also first in the playoffs in defense which is most important they did it when it counted yeah 113.3 so they moved up six spots defensively and when you think about last year the defensive struggles they had on in about the midpoint of the season in January when everybody was shook when they went to a nine and hopefully people have learned it's a long season you can make adjustments you saw the defense look very shaky right January 20th onward because that's the date that is post the martin luther king day beat down that he suffered at the hand of the maverick that was a couple days after that wow they their defensive rating from that point onward this was was 108.2 okay 182 point points per 100 possessions yeah you want the playoff number all right yes you can bring up the playoff number 104.9 which is the best in the playoffs by almost spurs were 106.7 behind me elite they played elite now are they going to play 104.9 and why that matters is you're playing against the best teams in the playoffs offensively and defensively but their defense was holding up against other elite offenses including the spurs who are really good offensive team we saw them do this also helps when you beat teams by a million points yeah when you're when you're closing like again not playing with their food which they did play um you also you also like just interior point points paint points in the paint 43.4 great points per game in the page that was the third fewest in the nba now let's also take a note on that it helps when you got mitchell robinson yes that helped a ton yes but this also was done with mitchell robinson playing every other game basically and they still were able to have they play 60 was a 60 60 60 games yeah just not playing back to back every three three and every four games basically on average and their defense and interior is really damn good right now some people may look at it and say okay dex and brian what about the permanent defense and like sure you saw opponents shooting 36 from three but like three point variants can be crazy you can have guys shoot well on contested shots guys getting wide open looks i thought their three-point defense got cleaned up towards the end of the season i thought that was a huge part of it was a problem in the beginning it was a problem in the beginning and we talked about allowing way too many corner threes open corner threes and we talk about it with bondy where he would point out like yo they're going to landry chamet as more of the perimeter stopper than mikhail bridges in a lot of instances in late game situations right and this was like the first half of the season roughly yeah so listen we saw we saw the exact way this team can look good and have a top 10 defense they did it and how good they played from january 20th on and then as you said into the playoffs when you're playing elite teams or supposedly teams they destroy teams yeah and this is it the defense has to be good we know what the numbers are you have to be a top 11 12-inch defense to have a if you were getting anywhere as the knicks were knocking on the top five is it possible they could be a better defensive team this year i'm gonna say i probably would assume there'll be a little bit of slippage without mitchell robinson and some of the things you lack in the rim protection more coming on that later people we will get to that but do i still think they can be a top 10 defense yes i think if they can finish somewhere between 7 and 10 and they're still trending the right way as they go towards the playoffs yet it can still this is huge in terms of them defending the fact so a couple things i think cohesion helps i think i think that i mean i know mitchell robinson's not going to be back but same starting five not every team is going to have that luxury championship winning starting five now so there's a familiarity with how to get it done with each other they figured out how to mitigate brunson and kat being attacked finding different ways to cover for them and with both of them actually competing like kat especially during the playoffs as we talked about part of that elite defensive rating best defensive rating in the playoffs was kat was kat just being serviceable and then being outright good at times during the playoffs which we saw the turn in the hawk series that's really where it started and then from that point forward we were talking about him during the first two games of the finals where we were uh doing the live shows we were talking about him outplaying victor on both ends of the floor those first couple games when when we didn't really have it going he was being inefficient before the spurs ended up winning game three uh but the knicks obviously ended up winning the championship anyway but carl at the towns was playing really well um in general and defensively he was really bringing it so i think them finding solutions with brunson and kat on the floor is really important because that's something that can translate and then on coming off the bench you're gonna have jose alvarado for the full season now that's gonna help you defensively coming off the bench because he wasn't there until the trade deadline last year so you're gonna have him he'll be competing do some ride could obviously defend i know he's smaller and i don't think he had like the best defensive season of his career last season uh but him landry chamet like you have guys who can get after it the real question is going to be one coming off the bench just with the bench specifically because we'll take it off the starters for now because starters i think are proven enough to where maybe this conversation doesn't have to include them as much and we know what the issues can be like if teams figure out more creative ways to attack brunson and kat when they're on the floor at the same time now or one of the other if it's just one of them then okay it is what it is and we'll talk about that but as it pertains to the bench specifically because this has been a big topic of conversation in in the comment sections of some of our episodes where we've talked to fans about their bench concerns something that the bench is going to be terrible something that the bench is going to be great something that it won't matter because starters and what have you but two things that i have about the bench is one the size and how teams sort of navigate that so you have jose alvarado do some ride landry chamet that is not a big three guard lineup so to speak it's all in the six four combined with the fact that you're probably going to stagger in towns with that group a decent amount or og with that group a decent amount and we'll see one of mo dior or pacom dadia i would assume dior but we'll see how training camp goes more than that later yeah and then and to be clear all those three guys probably won't be out there at the same time all the time mikhail will be out there for like chamet or josh hart will be staggering for deuce mcbride or whatever brunson will be there with alvarado at times and then andre drummond which we'll get to later so we won't talk about that now but the defense coming off the bench is going to be interesting as i feel like a decent amount of teams have gotten deeper now so that's what i'm looking out for but to your point i think top 10 defense is what i would expect every championship team basically ever has been top 11 outside of the nuggets with jokic and the second lakers team the second lakers 3p team with shaq and kobe except both of those teams have a couple things in common the nuggets were trending defensively well towards the end of the season the lakers missed shaq for a good portion of that second three p and then their defense started you know and also they each had the best player in the world at the time that is a good point that helps the best player in the world who by the way in both instances seven feet tall that helped shaq seven feet plus you know it's a different hurdle that you have to overcome there i would not overcome obviously i would i would absolutely agree so that's it number five can the knicks remain a top 10 defense if they do that this is key to them returning to the championships and finals and then hopefully repeating coming in for us at number four this is a brian fonseca special attention to the knicks do not play with your food now if you've watched the show and you particularly watch this during the postseason towards the end of the season brian was on this before the postseason started he said the one thing that he liked about the knicks was their net rating and fourth quarter they had the best fourth quarter net rate by far the entire league by far they finished first the fourth quarter net rating at plus 11.7 points right it's record in clutch situations i looked this up for the knicks 21 and 13 with a plus 20 and a half clutch rating that was third in the nba that was a regular season this is a regular season yeah not postseason yeah because the playoffs it'll be that was just a regular season yeah but the regular season is where they had again they were best fourth quarter margin team by over a point on average right like over a point more than everybody else like there was a wide gap between them and cleveland who was in second second place and so people like okay regular season i we like to sometimes use the term flip a switch or not flip a switch when it comes to things in sports and i don't believe in that i do believe in building good habits i do believe you can switch habits in the season which is why you work on things and the next defense as we just talked about is an example of that but one of the things for me is they had some comebacks during the regular season that maybe should not have made the postseason as shocking they had the confidence as you kept saying that they could close yeah all this time but the more you close the more confident you'll be even if you are down you know one that comes to mind that there's a game in february they were down eight i was at this game houston 18 against houston they come back to mike brown's credit in that game he goes with a very small lineup landry shamit was on the floor jose alvarado also with jaylen brunson he closed with that and i believe ogn and ob cat like he did by the way like he did in game four of the nba finals the greatest comeback that we've ever seen like he like mike brown's obviously a big part of this but yeah just being able to be adaptable in that way i think the fourth quarters told us a lot because in that game yep against houston who's talking about they allowed 91 points in the first three quarters it was terrible against a houston yeah against the houston office it was not very good like like for the talent level that they had they really i mean they missed fred van vliet obviously all season long he'll be back this year we'll see how that goes their offense should be a little bit better but for all the talent that they have offensively with oprah shangoon i'm in thompson kevin durant in particular they were not a very good offense and the knicks were getting decimated those first three quarters and and it looked like it was over like they were they were a great fourth quarter team at the time but they didn't have all these comebacks and this to your point was like oh wait a minute they're they're they could be this team where they this is their i think you said it after like this is their dna like they just come back like they're always in games no matter what they outscored that was maybe as we're talking about at the turning point of the season in some regard because before that the noise was getting out there it was a bit wishy-washy it wasn't that long after i think the trade deadline was like a month prior or a week prior or so because this was on february 21st two weeks two weeks prior two weeks after all the yannis rumors and kat rumors and whatever and what are they going to do and and then this happens and they ended up to allow 91 points in the first three quarters of the game against a not great offense and to not allow them to reach 110 yes spoke volume and this also if i remember correctly i don't think i'm misspeaking here this was after that terrible detroit loss that they had at the garden following the all-star break whether it was the first game back was to try i think i'm right about that their first game back was against detroit and i think this game was yes correct was it the next game after that yes it's the exact game after that right this is saturday yeah they came back from the break yep they lost to detroit 126 to 111 we were here with tarika foster brads we're a good friend it was the third ass whooping and and and people were just like they can't keep doing this with the pistons whatever whatever like it was bad right and then they end up with this comeback win against the houston rockets after so and okay and so to me where patterns matter brian and we saw this because you know look getting down by double digits and having these comebacks and mix had these great comebacks was great they were six and two in games in the playoffs right and it came back and like two of the comments are crazy i have re-watched i have not re-watched and i might do this this week before the season starts i've not re-watched the 29 point comeback again but i do need to do that but what i did do early to surprise you yeah i have not i'm stunned that's a whole like the whole thing but what i have re-watched is i did re-watch the comeback against cleveland maybe about six seven game one game one and i watched that comeback and one of the things that always will stick out to me about that when i re-watched it you know because we're here we're doing a live show and we're reacting to things in real time but i was like kelbridge's defense was good oh man his defense was good like he put the clamps on james harden and everyone he was so good that was probably as good defense as i saw mikhail bridges play who had some very good defensive moments throughout this postseason but he was good in that now when i mentioned the six and two record being down double digits coming back that includes folks all four of their victories in the NBA finals all four of the victories in the NBA finals they were down double digits which is just when you think about that the reason i bring this up the reason and by that point they all felt kind of inevitable right and we get it they were down 29 against the first 20 in the fourth quarter late game execution which brian was harping on before the playoffs match right and to some degree their late game execution became a strength which is i think the point we're making when you saw the best fourth quarter net rating in the league throughout the season it became a strength something they could rely on but if there's a but while you say you can't play with your food when you keep going down double digits you're playing with five it's exhausting it can be exhausting too it's draining you don't want to play with that substantial risk right you don't want to keep going that yes you got the medal you want to be a good fourth quarter team you're in tight situations i just mentioned the knicks numbers in clutch situations and how good they were in that now some of that you're gonna have to come back there's gonna be comebacks through the year the knicks are not gonna play 82 games or through the playoffs and never go down and never not have to come back you want to have yourself in situations where you know how to win in a variety of kind of ways now to brian's point about continuity here because you've been through the fire because you've done certain things and had these different comebacks it's going to give you a confidence but you don't be so confident that you're arrogant to the point where you're like uh we'll start playing later teams will eventually like i don't know to what degree you can catch on to that but at some point you would think they can't keep getting away with this for another season it felt this way it felt this way during the playoffs so it was like yo can they keep getting away with this and they did i mean let me tell you guys there might be the day we might be sitting here watching the game together and it could be in a regular season be the postseason and the they'll enter the fourth quarter down 21 so just a point more than it was in game four against san antonio and they'll come back and somebody's going to be like and i'm not going to say that they're wrong they'll be like see ain't no deficit to come back from right there's no i don't believe that i'm not saying i would rock with that but i'd understand where the confidence would come from that's all i'm saying yeah i get the confidence off the title i get it i get it but the point we're making is you don't want to play with your food too much you want to have that championship dna you want to have the strong execution of fourth quarter i do not think this team is going to get rattled if they're in tight situations in the fourth quarter right i think that's important i think that can be a championship strength but you don't want to find yourself in situations where you have to keep coming back from large deficits yeah you know it'll be nice time or two in the playoffs which we did see to be some degree in the playoffs and the knicks didn't have different wins in different kinds of ways it is nice when you have a nice win you just cruise to victory like you saw in game four or games three and four we'll pick the game really except for game two you can feel that way about that five and six in atlanta six in atlanta that was something else yeah well i was in atlanta it was yeah the last but i had to guard that's in the garden game five kiss atlanta yeah yeah yeah you're right you're right you're right so all right so that was number four don't play with your food nicks you don't want to do that too much number three this is going to be a fascinating one for next chance and this has to do with homeboy can the team get a little deeper because brian's been talking about that can the team get a little deeper to me and i think we agree we agree on this because we talked about this can calm dadia or muhammad awar become a consistent rotation now why do i personally think this is necessary because of something brian said earlier the knicks need more size off the bench they need more sides of the bench now you might look at this and say dex why would i trust become daddy i just talked about this a couple weeks ago with my guy ej stewart from the orange and blue bloods podcasts he was on with me what what face should i have the calm daddy could be a rotation player and brian is now staring at me being like what is dexter going to come up with for me to believe that he is consistent rotation player i don't have anything to say for that we haven't seen anything to believe that i i hope he can and there's talk maybe he's a trade piece here we talked about this in a recent episode we talked about what this we talked last week sorry we talked about it last week what the next can do with the players assigned to the exhibit during the summer we talked about calm daddy a ton yes it is now or never for him fans i think the smart fans that have looked at this are going to say well what's his development been like in the g league what development would be my response would be fair some people are going to say well why can't he get off the bench why can't he get an opportunity fair questions somebody else might point to me said well might round the coaching staff trust in muhammad awar more than they did him last year that would also be correct i don't necessarily have an argument for that in fact if i was a betting man on this i would bet the dor is the piece that has a better shot and because of what we've seen from his development that we actually have seen this guy shot 37 percent from three last year this is a guy that played in uh just over 60 games last year right so you saw some of the trust from the coaching staff what we'd like to see and make the leap this year and ej and i talked about this am i concerned about what i saw from him in summer league and he did have the issue with his finger no but i think the thing for me is you need somebody to take some of the stress off of your wings particularly og n and ob now og n and ob's minutes didn't go down last year they declined from 36.6 to 33.2 again something i think that was very good by mike brown and i loved how mike brown i've been saying it all last year how i there was some injury management too because he did get hurt at one point in some time true and that that happens too yeah but last year under my ground no nick averaged more than 35 minutes again okay which you and i when we did our episode we probably can do this again this year where we go through the lineup in minutes and we become minutes police as you guys might like we'll probably do that there i just think from what we've seen from diawara he has a stronger foundation based on last year one year which is a shame to that he's been a better player so far i was trying a nice way to not try to say a nice way i'm trying not to also because i think like diawara like he's just better than dadi has been that said um and i don't want to over index on summer league especially a two game sample size in summer league much different role didn't really have a point guard out there with for a sustainable period of time and was the feature guy uh by design because it's like hey well somebody's gotta do it here create some offense we gave you a contract that's the key there too which i'll get back to in a second and uh he shot seven percent from the field in those two games seven seven percent now here's the the the key for me here mo diawara has a contract extension in place and a a cheap one at that like a cheap one at that like we've talked about the daddy a contract situation which is very important and i think that over 11 excuse me october 31st you could you could argue that factors into this more than anything else but moldy awara is getting 2.6 million this year 2.75 next year about 2.9 the year after which is non-guaranteed yeah on the first only the first two years are guaranteed right when non-guaranteed uh becomes guaranteed on january 10th 2029 my birthday that year and then he has a team option for 3 million in 29 30 where he'll so his team option four seasons from now is 3 million next year is north of 5 million like this might be a done deal now sometimes it's a numbers game yeah it might be a done net and on top of that in one year he's shown you more than has in two seasons like i don't mean to be down on like this but typically when the way teams use the g league is hey this is how we want you to play at the next level this is how teams use like teams in the nba use g league like they want you to play in a way that we're going to functionally play you at the next level from a from a from a role standpoint they understand like like someone like pakom daddy is a former first round pick you're gonna you should dominate the g league so it's not even like from a usage standpoint but if you look at the three point number for pakom daddy in the g league more than half of his shots are coming from three and he's never been a knockdown shooter at any level in his career of basketball like he profiles as someone who could be a good shooter but he hasn't been throughout his career yet you want him to be a 3 and d guy because of his size his defensive capabilities and because the form looks good as we've talked about like there's not an issue seemingly with the release or anything like that he can get open from the corner he knows how to cut move without the ball he just doesn't make the shot and even with that even with averaging 23 game points a game in a g league last year 32 on nine attempts on nine attempts that's that's the volume's there but you got to be over league average and he's not over 34 that's not gonna get it done just because of the contract alone daddy has to be significantly better than mo diawara and camp i think to really carve out a role because i don't think they're going to take that option for next year because why would you why would you commit you're you're in a money crunch now with the cat contract we'll see what happens with josh hart and then you know you got to pay og annanobi and jaylen brunson later on down the line we don't know what's going to happen with deuce mcbride you just gave out these other extensions like in what world are you giving daddy a that last year of his deal that's not to say you can't keep him at a lesser number but if you're declining the option he's a trade piece at that yeah i think that's the more likely thing still to happen with this team and just to be very clear when i talk about becoming a consistent rotation piece i you know i think what we mean here is can this be somebody gives you 10 to 15 solid minutes off the bench you can trust 20 in an injury pen injury yeah that's and you trust keyword being trust last year i'm a big actions person last year mike brown showed me he trusted muhammad awar trust with com.da i haven't really seen it yeah i haven't i haven't really seen all right let's move on to number two and this is probably i think one that brian and i're going to have a very good conversation about one of the things that we saw in the playoffs folks and i think people loved was mike brown's ability to make adjustments but particularly offensively this is where we get to the offense to diversify the offense to allow carney towns to be the hub of the offense and i think what we know as sports fans and journalists i think what we know here is every year it doesn't matter the sport you might have your identity you can do what you do teams are going to make adjustments then you got a counter then you got a counter back it is always a game teams are going to be adjusting you're going to be adjusting you can't just keep running the same stuff and think nobody's going to adjust and try to stop this stuff so the next made an adjustment we saw them run the offense to tag how does the offense become more diverse that's the thing mike brown has to further diversify this offense more than we saw now there were he tried to do some things and there were changes last year the last year than they had done the year before we shot just over 38 threes a game was over 34 the year before so that's a little bit diverse they made more threes than they did the year before it's like 14 three made threes a game right you saw a little bit of that they shot a better percentage they shot 37 they hit 37 percent of threes over there um and their assists were it's kind of about the same they're about 27 a game assist a game that you saw from there that's not the real thing that i also want to look at when it comes to diversity diversity because when the knicks we knew that they were such a brunson heavy team in terms of usage and reliance upon brunson what happened with going through kat ryan was okay that showed you they didn't have to be as reliant as him to generate and create the offense and that did wonders for them because they became less predictable yeah and that's what you want in the NBA all the time or i think in in any sports is is really what you want so the knicks their efficiency right there was a gap to me between him being on the court and off the court and i was looking at this and you know i love cleaning the glass and i'm looking at my stats and so in 24 25 last year tips the knicks were at 2.3 more points per 100 possessions with brunson on the floor versus off the floor last year 6.6 more points per 100 possessions with brunson on the floor versus off the floor right so it widened the gap for the knicks in terms of how efficient their offense was with him on and off the floor some other things that i think um people should look at year two is that they had an effective field goal percentage with one of their best offensive players it was higher with him on the floor 2.2 percentage points higher the turnover rate was lower with him on the floor so you know i'm not saying there's no value to brunson but obviously there is he's a steady presence there for sure they were fourth in the regular season in offensive efficiency right um also in terms of one thing i think everybody should also look at that happened in the playoffs with them in terms of offensive diversity and we talked about this a lot with bridges in the regular season they got to the line and their free throw rate which is free throws per 100 field goal attempts was 19 in the regular season playoffs 23.2 that was six in the playoffs so they got to the line more it means you're getting more efficient they're getting more shots at the line that helps you get points up also allows you to set your defense blah blah it's all good here's the thing this is nothing bad but when you look at the playoff lineup totals which the playoffs is what you're training to what's gonna matter a little bit more the offensive rating with brunson on the floor 124 off the floor 116.6 here's the here's the interesting stat and this is what shows the cat impact that i'd love to talk about right the next defense was also better with brunson off the floor but that's also not shocking considering the size it's kind of a given it's kind of a given yeah the next net rating though with brunson off the floor the net rating what do you think the net rating was with brunson on the floor in the playoffs i think i looked at this so you know yeah you could have just lied to the people so it's plus 16.7 right yeah in off the floor the next net rating was actually better which tells you the offense found the level of being able to diversify and actually get others involved and i don't think people there are some people that i don't think would be that surprised by that there's i think more people would but i think there's some people who because the offense becomes less predictable you have to move the ball around now you know with brunson off the floor and typically like if brunson's off the floor that means the lineup across from you probably isn't as good you know what i mean like you're probably not seeing like the best players on the other side either agree yeah what i will say though is i do think it gives those other guys more confidence in the ability of the way the knicks were able to execute in the playoffs with brunson off the floor is what i'll say this is where during the regular season a modia war would come in and like you now you can develop like can you actually and i think that's what the summer league was for what we saw in pockets of last year like can you actually lead a second unit because the second unit going back to that landry shammott do super ride jose alvarado like and andre drummond you don't have a wing amongst any of those guys and you don't have a wing creator really amongst any of those guys landry shammott's not a shock creator to surprise not really a shock creator jose alvarado is he can create a shot but he's not a shot creator necessarily that's sometimes where jordan clarkson has some value you know right right and it's if he can do some of that or just even if he's getting the shots that he got it's huge yeah that's where playing the point i'm making is when you look at that plus 17.5 net rating with brunson off the floor in playoffs it's not saying that the knicks don't need brunson to just be very clear it's not what i'm saying what i'm saying is it should make fans and the coaching staff want to try to develop more situations that can build more confidence for the players in secondary creation now to brian's point it'd be nicer and be easier if you have some other guys that can help do some shot creation for you it's kind of a lacking on that in the bench but what happens if some of the development comes from moldy or where you can put the ball on the floor right exactly something that's now a game changer for that matter right it's a game changer because now you've diversified there's another guy to put the ball on the floor is it having michael bridges run a little bit more the second unit and putting the ball in his hands a little bit more than we saw last year those are things that are also possible to diversify a little bit more it just looks different people are going to start to get ready for the cat as the hub i'm not saying they're going to be able to stop it the knicks can still move but teams are going to be readier for that so what's the wrinkle to that and the main thing for me is like i don't care if mike brown gets everything right the thing i admire about him most is that he's willing to try new things like in life period it's difficult to keep trying new things over and over and over again you know what i mean take it from somebody who can be like a creature of habit or you know like you know what i mean like it's not always the easiest to branch out and try um so i i think with with mike brown i have confidence that they'll find new solutions or at least try to like they won't always get it right they might fall in their face at some point maybe they lose in the second round of the playoffs and they can't defend their title in the finals it is what it is but i think that they'll figure out different ways to tinker with the offense as they go um the resources that he has i mean he has a lot of the same guys you don't have mitchell now you have to figure out the bench but like i think they're going to figure out whether it's i mean cat at the hub in the regular season we'll see how teams adapt to that does he actually put the ball moldy or his hands coming off the bench does he have deuce McBride try to create a little bit more offense if he's capable of doing that at the end at a high nba level at this point um you know how much is he going to experiment with maybe jalen brunson and jose alvarado as a closing lineup or having them together at points of the game with like an og and an obi there for size and defense and the wing defense maybe you have mikhail bridges out there too you know like i think there's enough there on his resume from last season and he won a title but there's enough there on his resume from last season to show a level of experimentation that i didn't see with tom thibodeau like there's no other way to put it there's no other way to put it i like tom thibodeau legitimately like i think he's a really good coach but i do think that they kind of outgrew what he provided and there are teams i think tom thibodeau will be great at coaching in the nba right now like like a charlotte or orlando or something like that and get them to the next level but i think with mike brown and what he's shown that's the most important thing for me it's like they have a coach who's willing to try different things and players who evidently are willing to listen players who have been open-minded or have in the case of what we heard with kat has been forceful in terms of like hey like let's try this like actually coming up with different ideas so i think there's enough agreeability i don't know if that's a word but i think there's enough agreeability in that room to to figure out how to diversify the offense further yeah i think if they do that it's just gonna take them to another level and because they had to your point they have a situation last year where really the inflection right let's do this and mike brown not having an ego which is the big thing that right there yeah okay let's do this let me listen that's what to me good leadership and i think if he did that why would he not try to diversify the offense right here as they try to defend the title i think there will be wrinkles i think we will see more wrinkles okay the last thing we've kind of talked about this we've we've honestly beat this one like a drum but so i'm not going to be that but i think you know both of us here we think at some point the next one will have to upgrade the back position that is not shade towards andre maybe maybe maybe maybe like andre drummond might be i think i will say it again there's definitely people amongst uh nicks fans who who watch the show yeah and are very high like andre drummond is gonna be this and that and i'm like you know what i'm not saying definitively i know what he is or isn't gonna be i think he'll be motivated to play here i do think that i have some concerns defensively after what i saw in the playoffs that i think are legit and here's the thing i think the nicks did too and that's why the nicks went out and gave an offer sheet to musa sisa i do not actions matter trade rumors for um missing what we've talked about yeah actions matter and i do not think that that just came out of nowhere i think they were also trying to get you know a good player in on some good value young senator to mold and maybe eventually get to a long-term contract so i think it tells you a little bit about how they feel about andre drummond um it might think look i'm not going to go too much into this andre drummond's rim protection has declined over the years he's still a very damn good rebounder um he's not the offensive rebounder that mitchell robinson was uh and nobody is in the league so i understand that the thing you know in andre drummond is generally available i think that it's good but some people like brian love the fact that he's shooting three-pointers right now i'm saying that tell you cheap yeah yeah if you if you see that episode a few years a few years a few weeks ago i don't care about his quarter at all but it does not matter to me at all my thing is i think they're gonna have to keep an eye on this it's there's a world in which you look at this position in the back of five as being the most consequential position to the season he has a lot of pressure on him right and surely or not he does and yeah and i think when me and e.j did an episode about nicks who were facing the most pressure this season he was number three in both of our lists we did a top three and he was number three for both of us uh both of us had deuce mcbride as number one and e.j had muhammadi awar two and i had the komedani ah that's two okay so that that that's what the list was we both we had the same with that being said if we'll know how confident nicks are around this time we're not confident y'all are fans because you'll be letting us know how you feel you don't feel about these players as you guys always do and we'll see but i think it's a position you have to get right the nicks had a security blanket with mitchell robinson they knew what they got out of him when he word went healthy they knew that what you were going to get out of him with healthy i've always said last time mitch robinson touched the ball as nick was getting an offensive rebound that's i think is absolutely fitting of that he gave you the defense he gave you the rebounding unfortunately he's no longer here you're going to need competent backup center play to get through the playoffs and you're going to need that on the defensive end because if teams think they can attack or cat gets in foul trouble just think about the finals guys when cat got in foul trouble you okay when mitch came in and had to guard wendy a little bit or you were fine with that are you comfortable with andre trumman we'll see maybe andre trumman has the best defensive season in his career i hope so i hope that happens the nick fan hopes that happens i don't think the mix is that confident that's why they looked at the moves to cc that's why you've heard the eves meesey rumors i think they will be looking to upgrade i think they will need to upgrade it's either and i should have been fair on this what we're saying is the number one thing is nick said upgrade the back center position or andre drummond has the shot if andre drummond shines defensively great foul money you're good if andre drummond struggles defensively that is the nicks are going to have to upgrade that position because if they don't i do think that's a problem you have until february with this and your time and then from there you'll see and i think even if he's good and holds down the spot they'll probably get somebody else to fortify that spot maybe they have a two-way between now and then i don't know what's going to happen um if cat gets injured which obviously knock on wood you don't want that to happen but then that that puts a magnifying glass on this like tenfold and what have you um we've talked about this a ton so i'm not gonna go too long on it but big shoes to fill i know mitchell robinson was imperfect and played limited minutes the last few seasons but he did play 60 games last year 60 and that's the most that he's basically played since the 2122 season which was the second year of tom thibodeau if i'm not mistaken um which is significant and he played 20 minutes a game during the regular season where we weren't sure if it was going to be uh more than maybe 15 to 18 minutes he ended up playing 20 minutes a game there were a bunch of starts in there as well because they did experiment with that um he started 16 games last year andre drummond last year played about the same amount of minutes about the same amount of games 63 games 25 starts to 16 starts 19 and a half minutes per game and you guys saw in the playoffs it was an adventure defensively now they can't play the guys that andre drummond played against in the playoffs because that's them that's the knicks right but at the same time that that's just going to be something that and teams are going to do this like teams know with mitchell whoever the center is on this roster the other teams are going to attack them whether it's so this is a spot that is going to be monitored very closely i do agree that he's one of the top three knicks with the most pressure this season i think that there's an argument for 102 um but there's a world where he turns back the clock he rebounds really well he's serviceable defensively he can score around the basket and it's great and he holds down the spot and that's really what you wanted to be able to play in the playoffs so we'll see i'm not sleeping on the idea that they'll add another center because they've tried to do that already frankly they've been trying to do that and they probably will revisit that knowing how this front office operates and how responsible they've been in terms of t building um and i think if it looks bad early you will start to hear things before christmas because that's when a lot of the league is going to be trade eligible december 15th and the january 15th are the dates that obviously the trade deadlines in early february so this is something that you'll really hear a lot about between then between that december 15th period and the trade deadline and that's when the knicks are going to have to need an answer barring a cat injury where what do you do at that point right that's so listen this is again i i think the defense can be a concern um it's the rim protection for me december one when you look at shots that opponents took within six feet against mitch robson 53 shooting there yeah cat 57 okay andre drummond 67 while his field goal percentage like on the offensive end was 47 of the worst of his career so his finishing ability i mean part part of that is yeah which again i've talked about this i'll just reiterate last year yeah he shot 90 threes last year i'll just reiterate again i do not care about the corner threes at all i just don't because like other teams are going to be like okay well if andre drummond wants to shoot corner threes like that means landry shaman's not shooting that means deuce isn't shooting that means brunson's not shooting that means mikhail's not shooting og's not shooting cast not shooting so like knock yourself out if you want to shoot 10 threes okay you want to shoot 15 threes okay like that's what that's why to me it's not a it's not a consequential shot it's not a shot that matters the win for the defense right right if you're he's whatever the lineup is he's probably going to be the fifth option regardless of if he's if he if he's in the top 10 guys on this team he's going to be the fifth option in any lineup offensively because he's the 10th option out of all those guys so if he's going to be the fifth option and he's shooting a corner three you're like great if you're the other team that's why that's to me it doesn't matter you got it if he can rebound well and protect the rim better than he did last year it's huge bonuses for the next um those room protection numbers are not good 51 uh he shot 51 percent on twos last year 51.4 percent on two so actually that's still the lowest of his career we'll see we'll see if he's better new environment back home in new york second might be might be engaged in that so we will see all right those are our top five things we believe the knicks need to do in order to repeat championship watch is about to be on like i said we got media day on monday training camp opens on tuesday right back at it you know the knicks coverage never stops on this show on new york back game we do not stop we keep bringing it to you all the time let us know do you like our top five is there something we missed other than the health which we said this obviously there's nothing more important than that but is there something else that you think the knicks must absolutely do in your book for them to defend the title this year we'd love to hear it let us know in the comments hit that like button hit that subscribe button for you guys that's going to do it for this edition of new york got game for my guy brian fonseca i'm jackson hamlin catch you next time on another edition of new york got game peace and thanks for watching new york got game