Knicks' Biggest Surprises Through Opening 3 Weeks of 2021-22 NBA Season
The New York Knicks spent the 2020-21 NBA season laying the foundation for the Tom Thibodeau era.
The plan for this campaign was to build off of that success, and the 'bockers have done that—just probably not in the way they envisioned it.
The personnel hasn't changed a ton since the 2021 playoff run, but the winning formula sure has. That's among the biggest surprises from New York's start.
The Offense Rocketed into the Top 5
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New York's offense left a bad taste in everyone's mouth when it was basically rendered nonfunctional by the Atlanta Hawks in their first-round matchup last season.
It probably wasn't as bad as your brain thinks it remembers, but it wasn't great. The Knicks were 22nd in offensive efficiency, per NBA.com, and 21st in three-pointers made. That's part of the reason why New York paid both Kemba Walker and Evan Fournier in free agency.
The Knicks could reasonably expect some improvement this season, but who saw this coming? Entering Wednesday, they were up to fourth in offensive efficiency and fifth in made threes. And that's despite Julius Randle and Alec Burks scoring fewer points and making fewer threes than last season and RJ Barrett losing more than 5 percentage points off of his three-point splash rate.
But Derrick Rose and Kemba Walker are hitting just about every three they attempt, and Evan Fournier has provided his own expected boost.
The Defense Plummeted to the Bottom Third
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When the Knicks were spending on scorers this summer, they might have conceded that the offensive focus could come at the defense's expense.
Then again, they might have thought, or at least hoped, that having Thibodeau on the sideline and a healthy Mitchell Robinson on the interior might mitigate the defensive damage.
It hasn't. In fact, the Knicks are defending even worse than their projected worst-case scenarios.
New York, which last season had the NBA's fourth-best defense, has nose-dived all the way to 25th in the category. It's a tremendous testament to the Knicks attack that its overly generous defense hasn't done more harm to the team's wins and losses columns.
Immanuel Quickley's Slow Start
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Immanuel Quickley more or less arrived in New York as a rotation-ready rookie last season.
He defended the way Thibs wanted, bagged nearly 40 percent of his threes and flashed a floater that most veteran NBA guards couldn't match. By year's end, Quickley had earned All-Rookie Second Team honors and seemed poised for a sophomore breakout.
Instead, the dreaded sophomore slump has taken hold of him.
His numbers are down across the board, including huge falls in field-goal (39.5 to 33.8) and three-point (38.9 to 30.0) shooting. He reached double figures in just three of his first 11 games while shooting 40 percent or worse in eight of them and sub-30 percent in five.
