The Knicks starters were having fun, the bench was having fun, the deep bench was having fun, Tom Thibodeau may have even cracked a smile at one point.
By the time the fourth quarter rolled around and the Knicks led the Grizzlies by 20 points, with Knicks backup point guard Cam Payne practically waltzing downhill, uncontested to the basket, there wasn’t a more fun game to be found on a Monday night. Definitely not for the Grizzlies, but they’re a resilient team who will learn from the loss.
What the win and the Knicks ingenuity — the way New York was dominant but allowed for a shifting dominance — made me think about was the Celtics. Specifically how last season Boston was celebrated for their competitive exactitude, and what their losses this season are showing about their rigidity. Namely, that it could cost them.
The most striking stat to me in the Knicks win last night was that the team tallied 32 assists compared to the Grizzlies’ 21. New York was shooting from everywhere but there can be a temptation with a lead that big for teams to start letting the ball fly from deep, chucking up hero shots because they’ve got the padding of points and a nice boost of confidence. The Knicks were definitely feeling a hot 3-point hand but Jalen Brunson, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Karl-Anthony Towns and yes, Payne, were all taking runs at the basket. They were also flipping the ball out to one another regardless of how uncontested their path to the rim was.
Postgame, Bridges was asked whether it was the Knicks defence that fed into the game’s second half offensive spark and he agreed. “When we get stops, when we get out in transition, good things happen,” Bridges said. “Playing together defensively, sharing the ball offensively — good things happen.”
Most notable was Bridges mentioning in the same interview that the Knicks weren’t “playing to score”, and yet scoring became their easiest outlet. None of this should take away the verve and offensive tenacity of the Grizzlies either, who looked thoroughly out-matched and even lost in some of the Knicks offensive rushes. It’s those kind of details that made me picture the Celtics in the same position, against the Knicks but also against a team like the Rockets, that bested Boston last night, the Thunder, the Cavaliers, even the Magic once they’re back up to strength, and most definitely the Grizzlies.
The Celtics off-ball movement has fallen flat and more often than not this season there’s just one point of attack. If that’s stymied, or comes up against defensive resistance — which has been ample as defences around the league have adjusted to slow Boston down — the offense regresses to even more ISO-heavy basketball. As games progress this way, in a kind of cyclical shutting down, the Celtics stop looking for each other and revert to getting quick 3-point shots off early in transition. Less than a shoot-first, confidence it reads like playing rushed and anxious.
What we’ve been seeing from the league’s new contenders is basketball that lives and dies by ball movement. Dies like it did last night by turnovers for the Grizzlies when they stopped taking care of the ball and the Knicks started to relentlessly pressure, but lives in the spark swapping ISO-drives and hero shots for better looks creates.
The caveat is that it’s late-January and the Celtics could just be eyeing the All-Star break, but this sort of dynamic pressure isn’t going away. Since last season the refrain has been “How do teams slow down the Celtics?” — what if Boston winds up doing everyone a favour by handling that themselves?
