New York Knicks' Triangle Drama Skirts Real Issues Plaguing Team
NEW YORK — It took just six games for the New York Knicks to devolve into a circus.
Yes, six games for a report to come out that team president Phil Jackson is unhappy with the offense and for assistant coach Kurt Rambis to be handed control of the defense and for the entire team to once again resemble a blind squirrel.
Jackson, according to ESPN.com’s Ian Begley, wants Hornacek to deploy the triangle offense more frequently. Rambis, whose mini-promotion was first reported on Tuesday by ESPN’s Marc Stein, was bestowed additional responsibility as a response to the Knicks' currently ranking last in the league in points surrendered per 100 possessions (110.9).
How or why Rambis—whose disastrous two-year stint as head coach in Minnesota ended with his Timberwolves finishing in the bottom five in defensive rating both seasons, and who was the interim coach Hornacek was hired to replace—received the nod is unclear.
"It could’ve been anybody," Hornacek said to reporters Tuesday at the Knicks' practice facility. "It could’ve been [assistant coach] Jerry [Sichting], could have been [assistant coach] Corey [Gaines]. We all talk as a coaching staff about the same things, so Kurt had some of these guys last year. Just felt it was better to put him in that."
Not exactly a ringing endorsement—and that was before Carmelo Anthony was asked about Rambis' new role.
“Whether we’re comfortable with it or not, it is what it is, and we got to buy into that,” Anthony said. “And embrace that and kind of just focus in on our schemes and what we’re going to do and just have kind of a foundation of how we’re going to do it.”
And so that’s where the Knicks stand now: They’ve lost four games because they can’t stop anyone and won two because their offense is just good enough to make up for it (104.8 points per 100 possessions, the 13th-best mark in the league). Only the man in charge isn’t happy with the offense responsible for those two wins.
And to think, we’re just two weeks in.
The good news: Things are salvageable. Rambis might not be the most modern of basketball minds, but he has led successful defensive units in the past. He was the defensive coordinator for Jackson’s championship Lakers teams in 2008 and 2009, and both those squads finished in the top six in defensive rating.
The logic behind the Knicks' decision to hand Rambis this responsibility is sound, too.
"We've had all the coaches do their own game in terms of what we want. I just felt that we're probably better off with just one voice, so with Kurt, we are going to have him be the voice on the defense," Hornacek said. "The other coaches will still do the reports, what they feel, they’ll talk with Kurt, and Kurt will talk with me. That’s how we’ll go about that, just so there’s one voice, not three or four guys talking."
Hornacek added that over the past two weeks there’s been some confusion among players as to where to direct their specific defense-related questions. But that’s all fluff.
The real issues are simple.
The Knicks have been incapable of containing opposing pick-and-rolls and unable to corral opponents' missed shots. It's only been six games, but if they can’t fix those problems, and soon, the season's going to end in disappointment.
The Knicks, according to Hornacek, entered the season thinking they had a fluid and versatile roster capable of employing frequent switches on screens, and you can see why. Just look at the starting lineup: Courtney Lee, Carmelo Anthony, Kristaps Porzingis—that’s a lot of quick feet and long arms. Joakim Noah has always been adept at stymying jitterbugs out on the perimeter. Derrick Rose is a bit bigger and stronger than most point guards.
But relying on switches has been a disaster. Right now, the Knicks rank last in points surrendered to opposing ball-handlers on the pick-and-roll, according to NBA.com’s player tracking data, and opponents are shooting 46.4 percent against them—the NBA's fifth-worst mark.
The players have often looked to be on different pages. That was a big issue in the Knicks' 114-109 home loss Sunday to the Jazz, especially in the fourth quarter, when Utah repeatedly torched them with a George Hill-Gordon Hayward pick-and-roll.
"We got to play smarter for sure when the 1-3 and 1-4 pick-and-roll comes," Derrick Rose said afterward. "Am I going to switch off on the 3 and let me defend him, or is he going to be a show and I get under and back in front of the point guard?"
The Knicks plan on plugging these leaks by scrapping the switches and having defenders on the ball follow ball-handlers over the picks and into the help.
"We want everyone to be more aggressive on their own man; I think we were probably switching too much," Hornacek added. "We want our guys to guard the guy that has the ball, to not expect help, to try to guard the guy like you’re not going to get any help, then [for] the help to be there."
The hope is that these Rambis-led (try not to laugh too hard) scheme changes keep overmatched big men from ending up on islands against fleet-footed guards and force opponents into tougher shots. Only seven teams are allowing more shots at the rim than the Knicks. Only four are yielding fewer jumpers in that mid-range area defenses want to funnel dribblers into, according to NBA.com.
The poor on-ball effort has transformed the defense into a jumbled mess. The Knicks are last in the league in percentage of defensive rebounds corralled, per NBA.com. Box-out assignments are routinely missed as confused defenders fly around like headless chickens.
So, to refresh, the Knicks are letting teams hit nearly half their shots and then pull down an inordinate number of the rare looks that miss, too.
"I think we’re scrambling a lot," Joakim Noah said Tuesday when asked about the team’s rebounding struggles.
Their breakdowns are also inviting shooters to burn them from the short right corner. No team is allowing opponents to connect on a higher percentage from that spot (54.2 percent), and only two are ceding more attempts, according to NBA.com.
The sample is small, but that number might not be as fluky as it seems.
"Most offenses are initiated on the left side of the floor, so that would be the spot that, if a team swings the ball, would be the open guy," a Western Conference scout told Bleacher Report. "Generally that's the result of poor on-ball defense."
The team spent the majority of Tuesday's two-and-a-half-hour practice watching film and implementing the new schemes. They went over how to defend pick-and-rolls from the sides and top of the key and worked on closing out on stretch 4s.
This represented a change from how they’ve been practicing in the past. It was just a week ago that Lee publicly suggested the team devote more energy to pick-and-roll coverage. His rationale was that all that triangle time in practice was preventing the Knicks from scrimmaging against the basic screen-and-roll-oriented offenses that populate the NBA.
There’s also the theory, floated by the Western Conference scout, that all that practice time spent appeasing Jackson and going over the triangle during training camp and early-season practices took away from working on defensive chemistry.
"Especially considering they’re not really running a lot of triangle now," he said.
So Jackson’s beloved offense might be the thing preventing the coach he hired from tightening up the team’s biggest weakness?
It always comes back to the triangle, doesn't it?
Knicks Insider Notebook
Election Talk
We’ll leave the election chatter and eventual postmortem for a different space, but it’s interesting that, in the lead-up to the election, multiple Knicks players told Bleacher Report they hadn’t discussed the election with teammates.
"Just not something we talk about," Lance Thomas said.
"I haven’t heard any election talk," Lee said.
That will probably change over the next few days. Here's what Noah had to say Tuesday night:
But it’s interesting that there was no political talk beforehand.
Porzingis in the Post
Tuesday in practice, after most of the players had retreated to the locker room, Hornacek made his way over to a side basket and began working with Porzingis in the post. He stood in front of Porzingis, crouched, shoved his rear into Porzingis' legs and proceeded to demonstrate moves that Porzingis could go to in the post when guarded by a smaller defender.
This has been an area where Porzingis has struggled. The Celtics were the first team to slide a smaller defender onto him—giving the 6'4" Marcus Smart the role. The theory was that Porzingis didn’t have the post game to take advantage.
So far, that’s proved to be correct.
Teams are now switching pick-and-rolls involving Porzingis more frequently. At first it was because Rose wasn’t looking for Porzingis on that mismatch. The two have since developed better chemistry, but Porzingis still struggles with separating himself from a physical front. Rose also does a poor job of hitting him with a strong pass.
And Porzingis doesn’t yet have the full array of post moves needed to bully smaller defenders down low.
His post game is still much better than it was last year. But until he consistently punishes them, teams are going to continue to feel comfortable switching smaller players onto Porzingis and daring him to beat them from the block.
Staggering Minutes
Sunday against the Utah Jazz, the Knicks opened the fourth quarter with a five-man lineup of Brandon Jennings, Justin Holliday, Thomas, Mindaugas Kuzminskas and Kyle O’Quinn. Utah proceeded to go on a 7-0 run—a spurt that propelled the team to a victory.
"Well, they have good stretches," Hornacek said when asked about the all-bench unit after the game. "That’s the group that’s been good for us through preseason with the ball movement. They’re playing against different guys now. So we still have confidence in that group. They have to give us minutes. A lot of our guys are in their early 30s, so we can’t play these guys 40 minutes a game."
That may be so, but there’s no reason for the Knicks to ever have a unit without Rose, Anthony or Porzingis on the floor. Staggering minutes is a good way to get those players extra shots and also ensure the team always has a creator on the floor.
An interesting ploy could be taking Porzingis and emulating what the Mavericks do with Dirk Nowitzki. Dallas typically removes him early in the first quarter so he can play with the second unit. Using Porzingis this way could be a savvy way to get him more minutes at center without Noah next to him and also more run as the offense's focal point.
After all, his development is what the whole season is supposed to be about.
All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. All stats from NBA.com and accurate as of November 8.
Yaron Weitzman covers the Knicks, and other things, for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @YaronWeitzman and listen to his Knicks-themed podcast here.
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