What's Holding The Knicks Back? | NY Got Game

What's good, everybody? Welcome back to another edition of New York Got Game. We're now in the first week of November. The Knicks, they've already played one NBA Cup game, for those that care. And the Knicks, they got the win against Brooklyn on Monday night. But are they closer to finding their game? Seven games into a title defense, the Knicks are 3-4. So, which early struggles deserve patience, and which require an adjustment? Join me this week. This is New York Post's Knicks beat writer, Stephen Bondy, as we will discuss the biggest questions facing this team, from Mikael Bridges' struggles to Mike Brown's rotation decisions. Plus later, we're going to take a look into my clipboard, take a closer look at what's happening with the Knicks offense. But first, let's chat with my guy, Steph. You see him right there. Steph, what's going on, man? How you doing? What's up, man? Yeah, I'm doing well. How's your beginning of the season going? It's going good, man. It's going good. I feel like I'm in better form than the Knicks are right now. You know, Knicks are three and four. You, of course, I know in terms of writing, you're still in championship form because we'd expect nothing less here. I assume you're doing that level of quality, championship quality writing for us. I appreciate that. But, you know, I'm knocking a little rust off myself. Okay. You know what? We all had a long summer. We're all still a little tired. Short summer. Short summer. Sorry. I don't know why I said that because it wasn't long. It was a short summer. You were right about that. It was a very short summer. So we are still tired. And, you know, we're pushing through. All right, Steph. The Knicks, they are four and, excuse me, three and four. Not four and three. Three and four after beating Brooklyn. What did that win, if anything? Did it change your assessment of this team? And what did it leave unanswered coming out of that game? No, it kind of reiterated what we've been seeing early on in the season, which, you know, is they're not shooting very well. Their offense is inefficient. I'm Mikael Bridges has been struggling, going but they've been able to get some productive play to go from Landry Shamet, from Jordan Clarkson, from Miles McBride at times. ahead So they've been able to make up for that. But I think the defense is ahead of the offense. and get And, you know, I think, you know, they got to find a rhythm. There's a couple of factors and they talked about it and it's true. started. They they still are playing their way into shape. Right. You know, Josh Hart said, we're all feeling it. And it was a short summer, like you just said. It was a celebratory summer. And they're still getting back into it. So, you know, the Nets are not a good team. And the Knicks took a while to get going. And there were times during that game where I'm like, oh, man, if they lose this game, you know, we're going to have to start throwing up some flags. But they pulled through when it mattered in the fourth quarter. You know, Jordan Clarkson was a big part of that. OG Anunoby was a big part of that. Josh Hart was a big part of that. And they pulled it off against a bad team. So you just mentioned that stuff about Josh Hart acknowledging fatigue after the very short offseason. From what you're seeing, what your eyes are telling you, and then just hearing from the guys talking in the locker room, how much does that explain the start? And where does it stop being a reasonable explanation? And maybe some people might look at it as an excuse. Yeah, you know, it's up to you whether you want to look at it as a reasonable explanation or as an excuse, but it's reality right now. And even, you know, yesterday, Mike Brown said it. He's got to divvy up his minutes better. He was running with, he said he was running with the starters for too long, and that played a factor in them being fatigued. We saw Mo Diawara get his first basically rotational run of the season yesterday. We saw him go with Jose Alvarado and Tyler Kolek. You know, one thing that remains an issue is backup center. You know, You know, Andre Drummond's had his ups and downs, but. You know, Mike Brown lost faith in James Wiseman almost immediately, and he has not played since. So that's still hanging over everything. Jalen Brunson not finding his shot is still hanging over everything. I mean, there are a lot of issues right now. Yeah, can't just point it at one person, but, you know, fans like to do that sometimes. And one of the players that's going to get a lot of the ire here is Mikal Bridges. He did play 16 minutes against Brooklyn. This was coming after he had 13 in Chicago just a couple of games ago. What are you seeing at the root of his struggles, and how does Mike Brown, what you just talked about, balance rewarding the guys playing well with helping Bridges find his rhythm early on in the season? Yeah, I can't get it in his head, but it feels like it's mental because those shots are just falling short. It's not like he's getting bad looks. He's getting open looks, and they're just not falling. And the defense has not been there either. So, you know, Mike Brown has a very, very short leash with Mikal Bridges. That 13 minutes that he played in Chicago was the shortest amount of time that he played as a Knick other than those two times when he just subbed himself out right away to maintain his consecutive game streak. So Mike Brown has shown we know he loves Landry Shamet. We've talked about a lot here. He's shown he will run with Landry Shamet. And I do wonder, now I don't think this is going to happen anytime soon, but I do wonder if this continues, at what point does he say, all right, you know, we're getting into these holes. We've got to switch up the starting lineup. Well, you know, it's funny. That was so much of a conversation last year and then obviously into the playoffs and Mike Brown stuck with it after game three against Atlanta. So I do wonder if he would do that or what it would take for him to get there. It would be very interesting. Now, another decision for Mike Brown's staff, Jose Alvarado, he returned against the Nets to the back of point guard role, but we did see Mike Brown turn to Tyler Kolek to start the fourth quarter. How do you think he should weigh Kolek's playmaking against Alvarado's defensive pressure, especially now when both are available, and he's saying that he needs to divvy up the minutes a little bit better? It needs to be situational, in my opinion, and yesterday they needed offense, and Tyler Kolek is a better offensive player. Jose Alvarado is a better defensive player. So, you know, right now the offense is stuck. You know, you could say maybe it's Chris Ginty. Chris Ginty is away from the team kind of definitely with a personal problem, personal issue. So, you know, he was the playmaker. I mean, the play caller for the offense. He was the guy that was basically the offensive coordinator. So, he has not been around. You know, I don't know how much of a factor it is. I did talk to a player yesterday who said his presence has been missed. Just, um, and And so, you know, they need offense. And they needed offense yesterday in the fourth quarter. And they went to Tyler Kolek and it worked because Tyler Kolek is a better playmaker. I think, you know, some of the biggest issues with this team's offense and They figured it out in the playoffs, obviously, with the transformational championship run. But, you know, you have Jalen Brunson who can create for himself and off the dribble. And then after that, it's like, who else can do that? Cat can create, you know, from the from the from the elbow and do stuff like that. But you don't have another ball handler that can create offense that you can give the ball to and say, hey, go make a play. Um, so I, I think that that, that has been an issue as well. And it leads to shots late in the shot clock. Um, the Knicks have had too many of those and, um, just the overall inefficient offense. I'm glad you brought that up about the extra shot creation. I'm going to get back to that in a second, uh, about the offense. But when you talk about this Knicks offense, Steph, Mike Brown has said, look, the Knicks, they're generating more of the three point looks that they want. And, you know, he always talks about his sprays when you watch this offense. How do you separate good possessions ending in misses from possessions that, from what I'm seeing, doesn't really put pressure on the defense all that much? How are you separating what the good that you see in the offense from the bad that you're seeing right now? Yeah, I mean, it's tough to me to say. I have to go play by play to say, all right, well, this guy just missed a wide open look As opposed to. They just couldn't generate a good shot early in the shot clock and somebody had a grenade and had to launch something. I tell you what, watching the games live, I do see a lot of that where it's like that was just a bad possession. Thank And, you know, you have somebody in a corner getting the ball who's contested with three seconds left in the shot clock. That's not a good possession. you I have seen those. Now, granted, you know, they're like I said. very Conditioning could be a part of it. They're just not cutting as hard. They're not just not running as hard right now. And you have a team that looks like it's playing its way into shape. much. Hey, um, You can if you look at it from that angle, like, all right, yeah. this is going to fix itself. You look at it from Mikal Bridges' mental standpoint. All right. You know, he's shown the last two seasons. He struggled during the regular season, but he picked it up in the playoffs and that will fix itself. So, you know, we have to see. You obviously put faith in this team based on what they did last season. But this three and four is not a championship start. No, definitely not at all whatsoever at all. Now, the offense, you talked about the shot creation. We know what Jalen Brunson can do in crunch time. And I do not have the stats through yesterday, but through six games, Cat had taken only two shots in eight minutes of crunch time. Do you think the Knicks should be playing through him more late in games just to give some diversity, some variety to their late game offense? You know, it depends. It's it depends on the matchup. I still think I've said this forever. You don't take the ball out of Jalen Brunson's hands down the stretch. It's just it's not winning. It's not a winning decision. You have somebody whose strength is coming through in the clutch. Who has, whose strength is having nerves of steel. And that's the guy, that's your big advantage. And that's, you want to flex that advantage as much as possible. Now I get it. Sometimes defenses understand that and they're going to load up on him. And then you have to figure something else out. But I want the ball in Jalen Brunson's hands to start and let him figure it out as opposed to Cat. That's fair. He's proven it time and time again. Back to Cat. When he sits or, as we've seen sometimes, gets some foul trouble. How confident are you right now? Because it doesn't seem like Mike Brown is. How confident are you in the Knicks options at center? And what do you think Mike Brown should prioritize when he handles, chooses who handles those minutes? Because like you said, he doesn't seem to trust James Wiseman. James Wiseman hasn't played again since he played against, that was Orlando, I believe, where he had that stint, where he came in against Orlando. We haven't seen him since then. How should Mike Brown be handling the center minutes right now, especially when Andre Drummond's been still a little shaky? It's tough. I mean, there's no options. They have three centers on the roster. One is Cat, an all-star. The other is Andre Drummond, who, like you said, is up and down and has defensive lapses. He had a he had a kind of a push shot yesterday that just hit nothing but air. And then you, and then you had James Wiseman, who, like you said, he got into that game in Orlando because Andre Drummond had been had gotten back on defense lazily. So Mike Brown took him out, put in James Wiseman. James Wiseman quickly went over five and then that was it. We haven't seen him since, basically. So this is the problem when they gave when they said, you know what, we're not going to the second apron. We're not going to re-sign Mitchell Robinson. We're not going to re-sign Al Horford. And now you have this situation where it's like... We have a problem at center with our depth. OG Ananobi has played it a little bit. I don't think that should be his position very regularly. And this is something that, in my opinion, is not on Mike Brown, but is on the front office to figure that out. I agree. And I thought that this would come up at some point in the season. Let me ask you this. Are you shocked that they've seen this backup center issue so early in the season? I maybe thought, okay, maybe this year is ugly head. December, maybe January, close to the trade deadline. Are you surprised that we're here already? No. I mean, listen, I think Andre Drummond is capable, and I didn't know exactly what we were going to get out of him. But, you know, we talked about it. I remember we talked about it on the draft night. It was like, you have to go in the second apron. This is a championship team. This is the reason why you go into the second apron, because you have a core that is ready to win a championship, and you don't want to lose any pieces. And they did. And they decided, you know, we don't want to spend for Mitchell Robinson. And you can argue that that was the right decision. He's certainly not playing well in Boston right now. But I'm not surprised that this is a problem right now because You know, we looked at what the options were and how they handled it, and we predicted, all right, this is the one thing that could derail this team right now. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how soon. I mean, we've got to get past December 15th. The Knicks will try to upgrade here at the back of center position. All right, the Knicks have already lost twice to Philadelphia. What did those matchups reveal about their margin for error against other contenders, and how much weight, if any, do you give to those results against Philly early in the season? I don't give much weight to them. I mean, we talk about a million times that the regular season often doesn't translate to the playoffs. And if these two teams get involved in a seven-game series, we've seen what Jalen Brunson can do when he gets Joel Embiid in a pick and roll. And that's obviously a great advantage for the Knicks. It did show me, all right, well, maybe the Knicks should have went for LeBron James a little bit harder because he's still playing. At an extremely high level, despite his age. And we know that he wanted to come to New York and play. And he would have come for a minimum because he came for the minimum with Philadelphia. So that was one thing that stood out to me with those matchups because LeBron James played really well. They won without Jalen Brown and they won pretty handily without Jalen Brown. The second thing is Tyrese Maxey is a hell of a player and he's getting better. And the Knicks have no answer for him. So I think that those are the things that if you're projecting going forward, how do we stop Tyrese Maxey and will LeBron James slow down? It's going to be interesting going forward, but you were right. You were right. Regular season doesn't always translate to playoff success, so we will see how that goes down the road. Last thing for me, Steph, looking ahead, over the next five to ten games, what would you say that you need to see that the Knicks are making real progress here? Because as you said, three and four, not a championship start, but making progress even on a night when their shots aren't falling because we've seen the offense struggle. So what do you need to see from the Knicks over the next five to ten games or so? Faster offense, faster pace, move the ball. All right. It's become stagnant and predictable. And you can blame, you can say, well, they're just giving the ball to Jalen Brunson and letting him dribble, dribble, dribble. But as I said on this show, they don't have anybody else that can create off the dribble. So you need to figure out ways to diversify the offense. And I'm not talking about crunch time. That's still when I want Jalen Brunson to have the ball. I'm talking about earlier. Um, in the, uh, earlier in the game. And I, I frankly want to see more Jordan Clarkson when he's been in the game, they have looked, you know, tremendous. And you talk about guys that create, he can create. So I I'd like to see more of Jordan Clarkson. To see what he can do and see if he can jolt this offense. Jordan Clarkson, one of the best on-off numbers on the team right now, has been looking really good. I like to see that, too. Plus, he's got some shot creation ability. By the way, Steph, a source told me you're very excited about a football game this coming weekend between the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants. I heard you're very excited about that game. I'm taking a year off. I'm very busy. I'm not watching any football this year. Thank you. I don't even pay attention. I don't know. What are you talking about? You don't even know what I'm talking about. Okay, that feels real convenient, man. Real, real convenient. Something tells me you might be doing a little watching, a little watching on Sunday. We'll see. Everybody, that is my guy, Stephen Bondy, does a great job covering the Knicks for us here at the New York Post. Steph, appreciate you coming on with me in New York Got Game as always. Thank you, bro. All right, bro. Alright, time for Dex's Clipboard, the first one of this season. Seven games in, as we talked about, the Knicks, they are 3-4. So, here's what we're going to do. Let's go beyond the record with three things that got my attention, and we're going to do it by looking at some stats from Cleaning the Glass. First up, the offensive trouble is scoring closer to the basket. Now, New York, they're shooting 36% from three. That ranks 12th in the league, but the Knicks are 29th. At the rim, they're making 58.2% of their shots. Last regular season, they made 66.1%. That's almost 8 percentage points lower. And their half-court scoring efficiency ranks 28th compared with 7th last season. Now, that's a full season versus 7 games. So, we've got to keep the sample size in mind. Now, as I watch more film, I plan to dive deeper into how much of this is difficult shots. And how much is miss makeable ones? Because those are two different problems. But my take here is simple. I want to see them create cleaner opportunities inside the arc. Make the defense rotate. Cut with purpose. Use a paint touch or sprays, as Mike Brown likes to say, to create the next advantage. Basically, give yourself a better chance to finish the play. Secondly. Value your possessions. Possessions, they are not to be party favors that you just hand out. That's not what you want to do here. The Knicks rank fourth in offensive rebounding rate. That's something that I think they can build on. They're creating second chances. But here's the thing. Their turnover rate is 16%. That's up 13.9% last regular season. An increase of more than two percentage points going from 13.9% to 16%. That's not what you want. They rank 27th in forcing turnovers. So they're chasing extra chances on the glass while giving some away with the ball. There's actually an encouraging foundation here. New York ranks 7th in defensive efficiency overall. So my ask is, and I'm sure it's Mike Brown's ask as well, sharper decisions to support that defense. Value the simple pass. When the first option is covered, keep the ball moving. Make the defense earn the stop. You worked the Knicks did to get that possession. You can't be out here handing. Possessions over like they're free gift bags, that's not going to work. Now, the last thing for me is the bench It's actually showing us some positive play. The starting five, that's Brunson, Hart, Bridges, and Anunoby, Towns, they've scored just 99.5 points per 100 possessions in 190 possessions together on the court. Meanwhile, Landry Shamet, he's shooting a blistering 45.7% from three, and here's the number that makes you check your screen. The Knicks scoring margin per. 100 possessions is 52.8 points better with Jordan Clarkson on the floor than off. You heard Steph talk about it there. Yes, 52.8. Now, let's pump the brakes as that comes from just 54 minutes. Small sample size theater, people. Teammates and opponents matter. And that split doesn't isolate Clarkson's individual impact. So, my take here is that Mike Brown should do exactly what he's used the regular season for. We saw last season. Keep testing the combinations. Check out Shamet's shooting more, Clarkson's scoring, Kolek's playmaking. I'd keep looking at how those skills that we've seen from those bench players fit alongside the starters. The question that I put to Mike Brown is, which combinations give you shooting and decision-making while also getting the stops that you need? Seven games is an early checkpoint. For me, the next step is seeing better possessions stack up whichever five guys are on the floor. And that's going to do it for this episode of New York Got Game. Special thanks to the great people here that make this show look as amazing as it does. My producer, Nick Federico, editor Antonio Olivares-Nicole, technical director Brian Rakowski, and associate producer Jeff Stansbury. Thank you to my guy, Stephan Bondi, for joining us on this one. We'll catch you next time on another edition of New York Got Game. And thanks for watching New York Got Game. Boom shakalaka. Okay.