Knicks Morning News (2023.05.09)

“we are doubling Jimmy Butler for no reason”

…other than every time we don’t double him he scores at will or gets to the line…

While Giannis being compromised was certainly a major factor in the Heat steamrolling them, the Bucks are still a very solid team without him, and would likely have easily dispatched of the Knicks if that was the matchup and Giannis was back for game 4 and 5.

Right now, Jimmy Butler is playing at a level reserved for the all-time greats of the game. On top of being the consummate alpha dog leader who reads the game at an elite level and makes his teammates better, he is both an unstoppable offensive weapon and a 5-position lockdown defender. He is light years ahead of our best player, whoever that is. He’s not a healthy Giannis, but Giannis isn’t him either.

The only way that doubling Jimmy would work is if his teammates missed open 3s and Bam missed layups, 10-ft jumpers and dunks.

And none of RJ, Grimes and Hart can contain Butler 1-on-1. Jrue Holiday is a better defender than all of them and Butler mercilessly torched him.

In game 3, coming back on a bum ankle, there was a stoppage in play and Butler threw down a dunk that only guys like Obi could do. He still has an elite vertical. You need a wing with elite length, strength and athleticism to even slow him down 1-on-1, and he’s so crafty that he still gets to the line repeatedly against those guys unless he’s having a cold night. He’s like Dwyane Wade in that regard, only bigger.

“KnickerBlogger says:
May 9, 2023 at 09:30
The Knicks just didn’t match up well with Miami. Or you could say Miami matched up well against us.

Miami kept the glass clean, on BOTH ENDS! Crisp ball movement, hustle plays, and just the right amount of physical contact to make the refs swallow their whistles and get into the Knicks’ head. Oh and (compared to the Knicks) reliable three point shooting.

I think the rebounding and three point shooting were the decisive factors. the Knicks were 2nd/9th in offensive/defensive rebounding during the season, but you wouldn’t know that by this series. Those second chances that powered NY over Cleveland was now fueling Miami. And the Knicks didn’t have a knock-down three point specialist (not tied to the bench). There wasn’t a single three point attempt by New York that I felt was going in. Miami could go to their psuedo-zone and have two/three defenders harass Randle, without fear of reprisal.”

+1. Blocking out isn’t a thing in today’s NBA (Clyde often refers to it as a lost art) and Miami is well coached enough that it IS a thing for them. Additionally, Kevin Love has always been an elite rebounder even though he isn’t all that athletic. Kyle Lowry is an excellent rebounding guard for his size. Jimmy and Bam speak for themselves. And then there’s those pesky hustlebunnies…

“Like Mike said, single coverage could work if we could nail our rotations. But whether Randle (confused) or RJ (overpowered), we can’t.”

First, obviously Spo and Butler KNOW that the Knicks aren’t going to nail rotations. So it’s pick your poison.

Second, Jimmy hasn’t even been sweating this series. They won the three games he has played in going away without him needing to score 30+. He has another level to go to if needed.

I think prime, healthy Dwyane Wade is a pretty good comparison for Jimmy, maybe better on D and not quite as good on O but that level of player. Ultimately the supporting cast is not good enough for a chip without a ton of luck, but he’s the real deal.

“…To say we’re mediocre? Come on!”

I’m not touching this with a 10-foot pole…

“I don’t know what a “big leap” from IQ would look like. He’s already a 1.7 BPM player, already quite good. He’d need to either become a great playmaker or shoot the lights out to make a truly big leap, and even then… do we see IQ as a 5 BPM player or something? That seems optimistic.”

Fair point, I also don’t see where the big leap from where IQ was comes from. But at the right price he’s a very valuable player and at age 23 he should improve at least somewhat.

“RJ could legitimately take a “big leap” and still be a negative player, and would have to make a Bob Beamon-sized leap to actually become a truly GOOD player.”

This playoff run has given us a reasonably good idea of where RJ is likely to top out as a player. He’s playing to a 3.0 BPM without really doing anything extraordinary (34% 3pt shooting, .517 2pt shooting, sme usage, FTr and 3PAr, slightly higher AST%). So the question is: leap from where? His regular season numbers (which include lots of stretches of similarly good play) or his 2023 playoff numbers (which seem to be very solid in spite of mediocre 3pt shooting and TS%)? In other words, if his TS% goes up because he improves his 3pt% to, say, 36%, and everything eles stays similar to what it is in this series, is that some kind of Bob Beamon leap or is it reasonable to expect that from a 22 year old?

Beyond that, I agree that it’s pretty clear that we shouldn’t be hanging our hat on these guys becoming all-stars in the true sense. But as a value proposition, they can both be solid pieces at the right price point. RJ has looked every bit of a $25M AAV player in these playoffs. Without him, we’d be long gone. And without IQ, we wouldn’t have been here in the first place.

“It would be a miracle of epic proportions if RJ ever had a 3.0 BPM season in this league. I think people are going to be disappointed if they start believing that playoff RJ is the real RJ.”

Which of the counting stats he is putting up in the playoffs do you think is the most unsustainable? The most glaring difference is in his 2pt%, which is at .517, well above his career average of .459 but only modestly above his regular season mark of .495. Keeping in mind that he is 22 years old, what is he doing in these playoffs that is unreasonable to expect from him going forward?

I mean this as a serious question because I’m not seeing him doing anything all that different other than making better decisions when he has the ball. I am not ready to conclude that he is congenitally the dumb, selfish, inconsistent player he has been, mostly as a guy who couldn’t legally buy a drink.

“In the Miami series, RJ is 60 points over his eFG% for the season, and 110 points above his 3PT% for the season. Also 38 points above his TS%”

But his playoff stats also include his first round games, the first two of which were lousy, and a lousy game 3 of this series. On balance, the numbers settle in to either his career or last season’s averages except for a modest increase in 2pt%.

And that’s exactly what improvement from RJ might look like in a reasonable scenario: just a significant change in the ratio of “good RJ” games to “bad RJ” games.

It’s noteworthy that he hasn’t had a ridiculous outlier game in these playoffs to skew his stats in a small sample (26 point high) and was actually benched by Thibs in the 4th quarter of one of his good RJ games, holding him accountable for probably the first time in his career.

“You don’t trade first round picks for wings who can’t shoot. Period. End of debate.”

Right, damn it! you keep that pick and use it on a deadeye shooter like Keon Johnson!

“The problem so far is that RJ has had a really, really, REALLY difficult time when it comes to cutting down on the bad games and having more good ones…”

Yet somehow he has managed to do that under the most difficult conditions to do it. Meanwhile, IQ hasn’t done it. Nor Grimes. Nor Obi. Nor Ntilikina. Nor Knox.

I don’t agree that doing it in the playoffs is “nothing”. Temperment under pressure is a pretty big deal. It’s one thing to have a great game or a great quarter (see: Lonnie Walker IV). It’s another to do it game after game against the same team when they are clearly game-planning and adjusting, and when all the marbles are on the line.

“I don’t disagree with what you’re saying really, but it’s kind of a tautological argument: “All RJ has to do to play better is play better.””

I disagree. Developing consistency at age 22 in the skills that you do have is a lot different than acquiring a skill you don’t have and would need to overcome huge obstacles to develop. And the timetable for turning the corner varies from player to player.

RJ is doing everything he is doing within his skillset and without outlier production. The only difference in his game in these playoffs from his game during the season is decision-making. He’s just taking fewer “bad” shots and more “good” shots within his stock repertoire.

Now some of that may be due to CLE and MIA’s best wing defenders being re-deployed to Brunson and Randle, but that’s still a good development. It means that when that happens, RJ can thrive by just being opportunistic, rather than going 1 on 3 like he often did during the regular season. If Butler was guarding RJ full time, my guess is that he’d be rocking a negative BPM for the series. But that doesn’t make what RJ’s doing some sort of mirage.

“It’s ability to generate the usage that’s the rare skill and the skill of stars. He has it.”

It’s also the skill of faux-stars that get undeserved extensions while generating usage on low efficiency. That’s what Wiggins was before he became a pretty good 3rd banana. Or Harrison Barnes. Or Rudy Gay. Or Josh Smith. Or Kelly Oubre. Or Nick Young. Or OJ Mayo. Or Ben McLemore. Or Dion Waiters.

That’s not to say that RJ will become any of those guys, only that having the skill to “generate usage” is hardly enough to generate optimism about his ceiling. Right now he’s a faux star as much as anyone before him in the high usage mode, but his performance in these playoffs definitely should pump the brakes on the “his extension was the worst move of the offseason” talk, at least a little bit.