By the third quarter,
New York Knicks forward
Julius Randle had already scored enough.
Dunks? 3-pointers? Pure basketball glory? Been there, done that. By goodness, Randle yearned for an ejection even more than the ability — nay, the pretension — to tally just one more point to his name.
The
Sacramento Kings felt the same way.
They sent incessant double-teams at Randle to begin the second half of Sunday evening’s game. What other choice did they have? Randle was on a heater, coming off two consecutive 30-plus point performances and a 27-point first half. But by this moment, with the Kings swarming, the ball itself was even warmer than Randle, sweltering enough for an old-fashioned game of hot potato.
Sacramento flung defenders at Randle, who didn’t force shots. Instead, he waited at the top of the key for those powerless Kings to mob him and found his teammate,
RJ Barrett, on the same cut from the right wing into the paint over and over and over.
Barrett hit a floater. He found
Mitchell Robinson for a lob. He sank another bucket.
On the alley-oop play, Randle motioned for Barrett to slice into the paint, staring at the 22-year-old with his back facing the basket and gesturing his left arm down as if to say, ‘Do your thing, and do it now.’
Two guys who have played together for four seasons but too often succumb to a your-turn, my-turn routine had morphed into Simon and Garfunkel.
“We’ve got to help him. … Get to our open space,” Barrett said.
The Knicks had found harmony.
There are levels of dominance within a game. Randle had flown past the stage of scoring in bunches. He’d rushed past the one after that, where the defense devolves into a frenzy because the swishing is so abundant and the star begins to manipulate the opponent in crafty, non-scoring ways.
At this point in the second half, Randle had arrived at a rare third stage. The Knicks were running the same play obsessively, and the former All-Star was broadcasting to everyone what he’d do before he did it. Yet, he still got what he wanted. It’s a special kind of control.
This is what it looks like when a defense’s only hope is for a player to get himself ejected. Of course, that’s what happened only moments later, when Randle picked up two technical fouls because of immense frustration with a non-foul-call on a 3-pointer. Despite the short performance, he finished with those 27 points.
“He’s going crazy,” Barrett said. “He’s hooping.”
Randle’s absence for the final quarter and a half didn’t affect the result.
The New York Knicks polished off a 112-99 win, their fourth consecutive victory, all of them by double-digits and three of them over competitive squads.
This group does not look the same as it did a week and a half ago. Ejections aside neither does Randle nor does a starting unit that’s clicking.
The theme over the four-game winning streak has been the change in the defense. Maybe that embarrassing loss to the
Dallas Mavericks only nine days ago, when the Madison Square Garden crowd booed the home team for what felt like two consecutive quarters, was a wake-up call. New York was 26th in the
NBA in points allowed per possession following that defeat. Today, it’s tied for 10th.
Knicks opponents can’t make a 3-pointer and are taking fewer of them. The transition defense is improved. Head coach Tom Thibodeau has adjusted his rotation, so defensive hounds are playing more and the liabilities are playing less.
But there’s another important uptick happening, one the Knicks need not take for granted: Randle is playing his best ball in two years — and so, by the way, are the Knicks’ starters.
The Knicks have searched for some kind of cohesion, especially offensively, in their first unit for some time now. For the beginning part of last season, the starters were a five-man punching bag. The second version of the group, the one with Alec Burks at point guard, had an expiration date. Even during 2020-21, which ended with a playoff appearance, the starters had issues.
This team is used to beginning games in holes. It’s made third-quarter beatings a habit. But that’s not happening with the newest group.
The Knicks might have found something.
The fivesome of Jalen Brunson, Quentin Grimes, Barrett, Randle and Mitchell Robinson is already one of the 15 most-used lineups in the NBA and is topping opponents by an impressive 10.7 points per 100 possessions. It’s scoring almost 120 points per 100, in line with the Boston Celtics’ season-long offensive output (which, for perspective, is not just the best figure in the league this season; it’s pacing to be the best one in the history of the NBA). No Knicks starting lineup during the Thibodeau era has eviscerated opponents like this.
It’s not even like the production is inflated because the starters are hitting some insane amount of 3s that won’t keep up as they continue to play together. Break down their success, and it begins to make sense.
They are forcing fouls, something they were pieced together to do but didn’t pull off in October and for most of November. Robinson gets a finger on just about every potential offensive rebound. Brunson, who sprained his ankle Sunday and whose status moving forward is uncertain, is a tortoise amongst hares. Grimes adds an element of cutting, attacking closeouts and firing secondary passes they didn’t have before. These trends are not out of character.
“The more time that guys play together, they build chemistry,” Thibodeau said. “They understand they can read, OK, Julius is being doubled in the middle of the floor. … Let’s get a guy to the middle. Get to the spots and get there quickly.”
Heck, the aforementioned play when Randle found Barrett who found Robinson for the lob wasn’t even just about Randle. Thibodeau has a basketball moral he repeats all the time: beating a trap is more about the second pass than the first. Doesn’t Barrett exude that when he receives the ball from Randle and flows into the alley-oop as if he knew it would be there the whole time?
But there’s no need to overanalyze. There is another reason this starting group has been so successful: this is nowhere near the same Randle the Knicks employed last season.
He’s in better shape. On multiple occasions Sunday night, he blew past the dependable
Harrison Barnes to get to the paint. He’s finishing
over down-low defenders as often as he powers
through them.
His efficiency numbers are the best they’ve been since he arrived in New York four years ago (and that includes his All-NBA 2020-21).
His shot selection has adjusted. The stepbacks that used to come a hair inside the 3-point arc are now either 3s or are much closer to the basket. He’s not shooting as much. When he does, he’s making more. And when he makes too much for a defense to handle, he’s doing what he did during Sunday’s third quarter.
He’s puppeteering the Knicks to blowout wins.
“Nobody wants to see him going downhill,” Thibodeau said. “And he’s reading the game well. … And it’s been a big plus.”
theathletic.com
