Photo: Adam Hunger/USA Today Sports
It’s safe to say the Knicks are going to be in the playoffs this season after a seven-year absence, even though it feels like a 20-year absence. Your eyes should tell you this Knicks team is a playoff team based on their improvement each month. The standings say they would be the fifth seed if the playoffs started today. The arrow indicates they are moving up with a seven-game winning streak to show for it after a 109-97 victory over the Charlotte Hornets Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden. Most importantly, the results and the current winning streak indicate they know how to win.
From A to Z, we will explain what makes the Knicks tick:
A is for Alec Burks. No Knicks fan or any media member gave it a thought when the Knicks signed him to a one-year, $6 million deal this past offseason. He was known as nothing more than a filler on a roster spot. Well, he is more than that. He is a candidate for the NBA Sixth Man of the Year. He has a case in a sense he has made shots down the stretch in closing moments. He is shooting 40.8 percent from the 3-point range, and he has a defensive rating of 109.9, which explains why he plays in the fourth quarter often. His play could serve to be invaluable in the playoffs. Oh, and he is a free agent after this season, so he will get a nice payday by a championship contender.
B is for Barrett as in RJ Barrett. I still wonder if he is a guy the Knicks can build around moving forward. He may be trade bait for the Knicks to get a go-to player like Bradley Beal this offseason. The Knicks need to get a legitimate go-to scorer, and they are going to have to give up to get. That makes Barrett a trade candidate. Still, he has played well enough to play in the fourth quarter. He earned the trust of his teammates and his head coach. Whether management believes in him is another question.
C is for center. The Knicks haven’t had a great center or an efficient center that defend or score since the Knicks traded Patrick Ewing to Seattle in 2000. Who can forget ineptness from the likes of Eddie Curry, Jerome James, Michael Doleac, Luc Longley, Othella Harrington? It’s most likely the Knicks will never have a center like Ewing again, especially with the game being guard-oriented. Still, the Knicks got results from Norlens Noel of all people. His play kept the Knicks afloat without Mitchell Robinson, and most importantly, it gave the team’s brain trust to not waste money on Andre Drummond.
D is for defense. It’s been forever since we can associate Knicks and defense in the same sentence or conversation. The Knicks calling card has always been defense under Pat Riley and Jeff Van Gundy. It’s what shaped them in the 90s. Once Van Gundy quit, the Knicks haven’t had a coach that would stress defense. When the Knicks hired Tom Thibodeau as head coach, the days of playing defense would be back since he stresses defense-first. His team’s defenses have always been one of the best. It’s no secret the current Knicks head coach made an impact by how well the Knicks play defensively. They are right at the top of the league in points allowed per game, defensive field-goal percentage, defensive three-point field goal percentage and defensive rating. It’s the defense that makes the Knicks go, and why this team won’t choke a playoff spot.
E is for entertaining and effort. I can’t come up with a game this season where the Knicks lacked entertainment and effort. They gave both all season. They reflect the identity of a high-energy coach in Thibodeau. Even when they are overmatched against elite teams such as the Brooklyn Nets, they find a way to be competitive. They are so entertaining to watch. They play the type of basketball that purists love: Ball movement.
F is for foundation. The Knicks finally found a foundation by hiring Leon Rose, William Wesley and Tom Thibodeau to run the team’s operations. Knicks owner James Dolan searched for a basketball guy he can trust for a long time, and he finally found it with this trio. The Knicks foundation resulted in wins, a likely playoff appearance and credibility. It also means the Knicks now have a chance to attract a free agent star such as Zion Williamson, Ja Morant, Anthony Edwards down the road now that they have a brain trust that knows what to do. The Knicks failed to get LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and other stars since they never had the management for them to trust. It’s a different ball game now.
G is for guard play. The Knicks received productive guard play from Derrick Rose of all people, Barrett and Immanuel Quickley. It’s been a long time since the Knicks received production out of their guards, which explained why they have been bystanders in the playoffs in recent years.
H is for home. The Knicks are 19-10 at the Garden. This team is creating a home-court advantage finally. It used to be road teams were not afraid to play at the Garden. With Thibodeau coaching on the sidelines, that changed. With fans back at the games, the Knicks feed off from the fans’ energy, which explains their recent winning streak lately. Imagine the Garden hosting a playoff game next month where fans will go crazy after years and decades of bad basketball.
I is for Immanuel Quickley. He is fearless. Yes, he will miss shots and he will take shots that make no sense, but he deserves credit for wanting the ball when the moment finds him. I don’t know if he will be a starter. But he can be a Sixth Man of the Year candidate every year because he can provide scoring off the bench along with energy. Wesley pushed for his boss Leon Rose to draft him since he has been high on his play. It turned out to be a good pick. Will he be better? That will be interesting to find out, isn’t it?
J is for Julius Randle. He is the engine that makes the Knicks go. He reflects everything from a Thibodeau player. A player that will give maximum effort every game. He plays defense, and he can handle the minutes load from his head coach. His improved play this season is why the Knicks are a playoff team. He benefitted the most from Thibodeau’s coaching. He made everyone in town forget about Kristaps Porzingis. He recently won the NBA Player of the Week, which is the first time a Knick won the award in three years. With the six-game winning streak heading into Tuesday’s game against the Hornets, he averaged 35.8 points, 8.2 rebounds, 6.5 assists and 2.0 steals with 48/45/84 shooting splits last week.
K is for killer instinct. Lately, the Knicks showed a killer instinct in finishing a team off during the winning streak. We saw that against the Dallas Mavericks last week, and then in overtime when the Knicks caught the New Orleans Pelicans as vulnerable after they blew a lead that helped the Knicks put the game to overtime. It’s just another example of the Knicks’ improvement.
L is for Leon Rose. I did not know what to expect when the Knicks hired Rose to oversee the basketball operations. It was an outside-the-box hire in hiring an agent. But it worked. He convinced Tom Thibodeau to coach the Knicks. His offseason moves worked in signing Burks and Noel. Most importantly, he did not throw money away just to waste cap space. Dolan clearly trusts him to do his job.
M is for Mecca. The Mecca of Basketball will always be Madison Square Garden, not Barclays Center. This is where players get motivated to play whether it’s the home team or the road team or even both. Barclays Center can’t match the mystique and aura MSG does.
N is for nastiness. No one will confuse these Knicks to Riley’s Knicks in the 90s when it comes to being nasty to face against. No matter. It’s relative in a sense the Knicks ain’t afraid to go up against any one.
O is for organization. I don’t mean organization as team per se. I mean organization as players, coaches, front office and ownership on the same plan rather than guys having different agenda. Everyone actually agrees on what the Knicks should be about, which is winning games and playing defense. There’s no I in the organization anymore. Refreshing.
P is for playoffs. The playoffs were a goal that Thibodeau set for his players when the season started. He has been committed to getting the Knicks back to the playoffs when he was hired. He coaxed results out of his players all season, and he has them in a position where they can get a top-four seed in the playoffs and maybe a playoff series win.
Q is for quality. The Knicks’ intent on putting a quality product under Thibs serves as a motivation of having a season like this one.
R is for redemption. Players such as Derrick Rose and Julius Randle sought to redeem themselves as Knicks. Randle wanted to show he was not the player he was from last year, especially with Thibodeau. He came to camp in great shape, and he played well as a result. For Rose, he wanted to come to the Knicks to show he was not the player he was in his first stint there. He wanted to show Knicks fans that Thibodeau can get results from him. He certainly provided that. Those two stand out to me as to why the Knicks are so much better.
S is for Spike Lee as in lack of Spike Lee. How great is it this blowhard is not at Knicks games anymore after his dispute with James Dolan last season? He and Dolan got into it about the security telling him what entrance he should go to at the Garden, and Lee said he had enough. Good riddance.
T is for Tom Thibodeau. He is the face of this franchise. Yes, it’s never good when a head coach is the face of an NBA franchise, it’s always about the players. But in this case, this is a great thing. It shows coaching matters. He should be the NBA Coach of the Year. He transformed this franchise. This is basically the same team from last year, and the improvement can be seen with their play and results.
U is for upset. The Knicks know they can upset anyone anytime with a head coach. Upsetting an elite team serves as a motivation for this team’s success. The Knicks can upset a team like the Philadelphia 76ers in the playoffs.
V is for vision. The Knicks created a vision where they would be tough to play against and build a product that fans can be proud of. They accomplish that.
W is for William “World Wide Wes” Wesley. He serves as the secret sauce to the Knicks’ success. He has connections with players around the NBA, and he knows college players. He has an eye for talent such as finding Quickley. He could be the guy that gets Williamson, Morant and Edwards here. He knows how to be a power broker in creating a super team. This is why he was hired by Rose as part of the Knicks brain trust.
X is for X-Factors. The Knicks have role players such as Burks, Noel, Taj Gibson and Elfrid Payton that can be heroes on a given night. Those guys will be valuable come playoff time. That’s a credit to Thibodeau for putting them in a position to succeed by trusting them with the right matchups on a given night.
Y is for yearn. This current roster yearns to be the group that built the Knicks to greater success in the next few years. It certainly looks like that could be the case.
Z is for Zion Williamson. The Knicks’ success this year could set the motion of bringing him in sooner rather than later.
