How Can The Knicks Cure Their Stagnant Late Game Offense?
By Tom Bogert
CBS Local Sports
NEW YORK (CBS) -- The most sumptuous generality of the Knicks current roster is that they've finally surrounded Carmelo Anthony with an exciting player or two not named JR Smith. Anthony needs not shoulder the entire offensive load for the franchise as he'd been burdened to the past few years, though it's unclear if he's really seen it as a burden.
Since drafting Kristaps Porzingis, the proverbial Latvian Sun God has the potential to evaporate the dark James Dolan cloud of darkness, disappointment and unhappiness that's stuck directly above Madison Square Garden, Anthony has been happy cede some of his hegemony of the offense. This year, especially when Kristaps is cooking early in the game, 'Melo defers to the point that sometimes it's plausible to forget Anthony is there as he drifts spotting up along the three point line as an afterthought, something that's previously been unthinkable.
But when it comes to the fourth quarter, and this isn't directly and solely Anthony's fault, the team devolves to primitive basketball: no movement, just throw Anthony (or Derrick Rose) the ball and spectate.
There's still value in having a player as such, of course, but the Knicks seem too eager and reliant on it as the fourth quarter winds down. It almost cost them an important win on the road against a stuttering Minnesota team that has had their own struggles finishing games.
Thanks to hero ball for the majority of the final five minutes, with a few halfhearted pick and rolls spliced in for variety, the Knicks created a need for the hero, a role that Anthony filled as his jumper won them the game with 2.3 seconds left. But the scenario was entirely avoidable.
When Mindaugas Kuzminskas (KUUUUUZ) drained a three pointer with 7:41 left, the Knicks elongated their lead to 17. That should have been the dagger, provided the Knicks score a bucket or two over the next few minutes. But they didn't.
Over the ensuing full seven minutes of game time, the Knicks scored a total of three points, all foul shots, allowing a frightful comeback led by Karl-Anthony Towns in which the Timberwolves twice tied the game with under a minute left.
The seven minutes of constipated offense was rife with bad turnovers, questionable shot selection, dearth of movement with an incessant amount of dribbling. It's not the first time this has happened to the Knicks, far from it, as it seems to be a regular occurrence.
Other than simply escaping the Target Center with a win, there were other silver linings to take out of the near collapse. First off, due to Courtney Lee's injury, the effervescent Brandon Jennings got to play most of crunch time, which usually helps with ball movement. More importantly, though, was that at least Porzingis was involved in the near meltdown.
It feels odd to point to that as a sign for optimism, but that hadn't much been the case earlier in the season. On November 22, Porzingis had 31 points on 13-23 shooting. He had the Garden in a trance and was clearly the most effective Knick that night. His last shot? A missed three point attempt with 5:48 left. The Knicks wrangled out a win that night, but it screeched into the your-turn-my-turn offense alternating between Anthony and Rose.
If the Knicks are to continue to ensure that 4th quarter collapses are more an aberration than an inevitability, the offense needs to be more balanced than a panicked, lazy iso.
This isn't a call to ban isolation from the end of games for the Knicks, of course, but just to moderate it better. Anthony has made his living in those situations, they just can't be as predictable as they are. It may not be the magic elixir, but it'll help.
In a make or miss league, as Pat Riley so affectionately branded it, you need shot makers. Anthony is an old school shot maker. But plan A can't be giving the ball to Anthony on the left elbow if plan B is giving the ball to Anthony on the right elbow and plan C is clearing the floor for Derrick Rose at the top of the key.
They've surely been better with it this season in general. Anthony is averaging one of the lowest amount of shots per game for his career, congruent with the Dad-'Melo vibe of last year, while Rose is averaging the least per game of his career. Anthony has attempted fewer free throws than he ever has thus far, emphasizing that he's really taken a step back and has let the game flow to him better than he has in the past.
The Knicks have an interesting, exciting roster. This is the first season that they have justified hope of not only making the playoffs, but winning a playoffs series since the Anthony's near-MVP season of 2012/13 when he lead the league in scoring as the team played spread pick and roll, and eventually fell to Indiana in the second round of the playoffs. That Roy Hibbert block is still the stuff of nightmares, and I'll continue to maintain until the day I go six feet under that if Anthony converted that dunk, they'd have won that series and been playing the LeBron James-led Miami Heat in the Conference Finals.
It'd be ludicrous to assume the Knicks can reach that height this season, but if nothing else, they'll be competitive and fun. And watching them figure out how to navigate fourth quarters together will be fun, too.
