Knicks Pulse Check Part V: Full Steam Ahead

The NBA season is a rollercoaster of emotions, and after passing game 50 of 82, the lyric from Jay-Z and Kanye West’s H.A.M: “It was all good just a week ago” never seemed more appropriate.

Seriously though - think about where the Knicks were before their loss against the Los Angeles Lakers. Thibs expanded the rotation, the Knicks had won five in a row, and both OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges looked like All-NBA wings.

But life has a way of humbling you, sending you cruel reminders of how it all can change in the blink of an eye. As we stand, Anunoby has been diagnosed with a sprained right foot, and there is no definitive timetable for recovery. OG went down on a non-contact injury, and the Knicks struggled to mount a comeback.

Taking a wide lens perspective of the Knicks season thus far, the orange and blue currently rank second in the league in offensive rating (same spot from our previous check-in), 13th in defensive rating (up two spots), and fifth in net rating (same spot). The Knicks also rank top ten in both defensive rebounding percentage (8th), and (10th) in offensive rebounding percentage.

The truth is, the Knicks have been good…very good in fact, and it wasn’t so long ago when the Knicks went through a stretch of losing six out of 10 games, including getting waxed twice by the Oklahoma City Thunder. The good news that is some things changed during and after a victory versus the Atlanta Hawks on January 20th.

Thibs’ Rotation Adjustment

Ask and you shall receive. Fans were clamering for coach Thibs to expand his rotation and limit the starter’s minutes, and he delivered. Including the victory over the Atlanta Hawks and the six games that followed, Thibs played nine players in the first quarter and shifted where the starters received their first rest of the game. The biggest change in this adjustment came with Mikal Bridges, and Josh Hart and OG also had their minutes per game reduced.

From January 1st through January 17th, in games where the regular starting five (Brunson, Mikal, OG, KAT, and Josh Hart) played, Bridges played the entire first quarter six times. In the six games following the Hawks contest, Mikal generally received his first rest of the game around the six-to-eight minute mark.

Since January 20th, the current minutes per game allotted to the Knicks starting five looks like this:

Compare that to the previous 43 games this season:

Thus far, Mikal’s change in minutes seems to have yielded positive results. Since January 20th, Bridges is averaging 20 points per game, while shooting 52.1 percent from the field and 46.9 percent form the three-point line. All marks are above his season’s averages.

Bench Mob?

As a result of Thibs expanding the rotation to nine players, the Knicks slightly improved their bench scoring. For much of the season, the Knicks were ranked dead last in the league (20.6 points per game) in bench scoring. After January 20th however, the orange and blue moved up to 28th in the league, (26.3 points).

Despite this move, it’s no secret that the Knicks need to improve their wing depth, especially now that OG may miss some time. After trading away Zach LaVine to the Sacramento Kings in a three-team deal, the Chicago Bulls recently waived Torrey Craig.

Craig’s most recent stint of impactful basketball came during the 2022-2023 season when he played 79 games for the Phoenix Suns, where he averaged 7.4 points per game, 5.4 rebounds per game, while shooting 39.5 percent from the three-point line. At six-foot-seven, 220 pounds, Craig’s size could be a major asset to a bench unit that struggles with scoring and rebounding the ball consistently.

Of course, Craig is not the only potential wing that could help. The Philadelphia 76ers’ Guerschon Yabusele has been rumored as a potential target for teams leading up to the trade deadline. Yabusele has been averaging 11 points per game, while shooting 51.5 percent from the field and 40.2 percent from the three-point line. Trading for Yabusele may be as simple as sending Cam Payne and to the 76ers in exchange for the French international. Per Spotrac, their salaries are exactly the same, and most fans will remember that Payne played for the 76ers last season.

Requiem for Wingstop

At the risk of sound overly negative, I tried not include too many doom and gloom takes regarding Anunoby’s injury and how his absence can affect the Knicks. OG’s record with the Knicks since his trade from the Toronto Raptors is 52-20, but the Knicks have always embodied a ‘next man up’ philosophy. Rather, I wanted to focus on some of the positives of OG and Mikal‘s partnership.

Remember, a decent amount of the fanbase felt that the Knicks gave up far too much when they traded for Bridges. Yet the prospect of deploying Mikal and OG to guard Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown was too much for Leon Rose to pass up.

To date, the defensive wing pairing of Bridges and OG has yielded the best defensive field goal percentage for any of the top three teams in the Eastern Conference. Bridges is holding opponents to 44.3 percent from the field while OG boats a 44.6 percent mark. That’s better than Derrick White (45.8 percent) Jrue Holiday (45.0 percent), Jaylen Brown (46.0) Jayson Tatum (45.4 percent), and Darius Garland (45.1 percent). Donovan Mitchell holds the best individual defensive field goal percentage at 43.7.

On the offensive end, per NBA tracking stats, both OG and Mikal are also tops in the league in corner three-point attempts. Bridges is canning 45.1 percent of his corner three-point shots, and OG is converting 37.7 percent. The corner three-point shot has been such an important part of Thibs’ offenses since he took over as head coach. This season the Knicks are 17-6 when both OG and Mikal hit at least two threes. Here’s hoping that the Knicks somehow manage to wrap Anunoby in bubble wrap until after the All-Star break.

The next 10 games span over the course of the NBA trade deadline and the All-Star Break. The Knicks will play the Boston Celtics twice and the Cleveland Cavaliers. With both Mitchell Robinson (just cleared for contact in practice) and now Anunoby on the mend, the orange and blue could use the rest to reset for the second half of the season.