Hidden Bright Spots for the New York Knicks So Far

After the two stomach-turning fiascos they witnessed this week, New York Knicks fans are struggling to find anything to smile about.

By now, you know all about the 2015-16 Knicks' best and brightest features: perimeter defense, Carmelo Anthony's improved leadership, 7'3" wunderkind Kristaps Porzingis. Yet, the 13 Dallas three-pointers in the Knicks' 104-97 loss Monday to the Mavericks and nearly everything about the 106-85 blowout defeat to the Utah Jazz Wednesday will have taken the shine off those bright spots.

Nevertheless, there may be a few things yet to lift your spirits. This team has some other assets you might not have noticed before, hiding under the bench, back in the locker room and deep in the stats.

New Training Staff Is Keeping the Team Healthy

Al Bello/Getty Images

With Anthony still breaking in a new knee, a scrawny Porzingis hitting the weight room to add to his 240-pound frame and a variety of old injuries ready to flare up at any moment for Jose Calderon, there were certainly reasons to believe that the Knicks might be injury-prone or in need of frequent rest.

But a quarter of the way through the season, the team has been able to stay relatively healthy.

Arron Afflalo missed the first eight games because of a preseason hamstring injury, and Anthony sat once for an illness. But other than that, the Knicks starters have played all 23 games. Other than a little soreness for Lou Amundson and Kevin Seraphin, the bench players have remained active as well.

The secret might be New York's revamped training staff. Per Marc Berman of the New York Post: "The Knicks promoted Erwin Benedict Valencia to director of training and conditioning, added Shimon Ishikawa as performance analyst and Erika Whitman as the team’s new sports dietician—the latter of whom helped Porzingis put on 11 pounds after summer league."

No doubt Ishikawa's analysis this week will mention weak leg muscles causing shots to be well short of the rim. Maybe Whitman can assuage that problem by adding more carbohydrates and bunches of bananas to the regimen.  

They Slow Down Opponents' Fast Breaks

Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press/Associated Press

The Knicks have generally succeeded at forcing teams to play at their speed (or, more accurately, their lack of speed).

They rank fifth in the league in opponent fast-break points, holding the other guys to only an average of 11. Protecting the rock and rebounding well helps, but mostly they've been putting the brakes on the break with good old-fashioned effort, chasing down the runner and blocking or altering shots in transition.

New York has had some success against the NBA's top transition offenses. Although the Washington Wizards did smoke them with 28 fast-break points in an early-season matchup on Oct. 31 (that the Knicks still managed to win, 117-110), they held the Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder beneath their averages.

The Knicks defeated the Thunder 93-90 on Nov. 20 and bested the Rockets 107-102 on Nov. 21, but they fell to Houston 116-111 on Nov. 29.

The Ball Movement Is Very Good

Although the Knicks aren't totally committed to the triangle offense this season, they remain committed to ball movement. Their passing stats across the board are nearly identical to a team that wrote the book on such things: the San Antonio Spurs.

The Spurs and Knicks rank first and second, respectively, in both passes made and received. No one player holds onto the ball long—the Knicks have the fourth-shortest seconds per touch, while the Spurs have the fifth-shortest. The Knicks even have the fewest dribbles per touch, which is a welcome change from the Calderon 24-second dribble show from last season. 

The trouble, of course, is that the purpose of ball movement is to get a step ahead of the defense, open up better scoring opportunities and higher-efficiency shots—but it doesn't seem to be working out that way for the Knicks just yet.

They're currently 27th in field-goal percentage and 24th in personal fouls drawn. Their adjusted assist-to-pass ratio—which is the percentage of passes that are assists, secondary assists or free-throw assists—is a meager 7.9 percent, which is fourth-worst in the league. 

They Protect the Ball Pretty Well

Bill Kostroun/Associated Press/Associated Press

Teams that put the ball in the air a lot leave themselves vulnerable to defenders in the passing lane. Yet the Knicks have managed to keep themselves out of any significant turnover trouble so far.

Their average of 14.2 turnovers per game is eighth-best in the league. That might have been hard to believe during the fourth-quarter collapse against the Rockets on Nov. 29, when the Knicks coughed up the ball six times in that quarter alone and twice more in overtime, bringing their grand total to 21 turnovers for the game.

Their ball protection is rarely that dreadful, though, and if everyone can just remember that Seraphin is entirely incapable of dribbling and running at the same time and must never, ever be passed to in transition, that will also help.

Prince Edward Zephyr

Thanks to the New York Post's Kirsten Fleming, we know that Robin Lopez and his brother, Brooklyn Nets center Brook Lopez, cannot live together in the five boroughs because their cats hate each other.

That's tragic. However, in bringing us the sad tale, Fleming also introduced us to Robin Lopez's cat, "He who is Kind and Just, Prince Edward Zephyr, the future King, ruler of the Western Realms," as he is described on his Instagram page. 

Even non-cat people must acknowledge that his soft apricot-colored fur is luxurious and give support to RoLo's #ForTheGloryOfEdward.

If none of this brightens your spirits, Knicks fans, just remind yourselves of this: They only play the undefeated Golden State Warriors once this season.

All stats are from NBA.com/Stats and are up-to-date as of Dec. 10. Follow Sara Peters on Twitter @3FromThe7.