Ever since final season’s slide to the draft lottery, the Knicks desperately wanted a backcourt stopper.
They wanted someone to stem the barrage of 3-pointers and pick-and-roll dissections that had been occurring nightly on Tom Thibodeau’s protection.
For a lot of this marketing campaign, RJ Barrett drew the project of guarding the opposition’s high perimeter menace. It wasn’t a optimistic system.
Barrett, regardless of his dimension and power, struggled to maintain up with the likes of Ja Morant. There had been additionally considerations the exertion on protection negatively impacted Barrett’s offense, which has been largely inefficient.
But these days the defensive challenges have fallen on Quentin Grimes, who stymied Donovan Mitchell and Trae Young in consecutive victories that injected some life into the Knicks’ vacation season.
“I like making it hard for somebody to score on me,” Grimes stated after the Knicks toppled the Hawks on Wednesday, 113-89. “I just look at it as a personal challenge, more of a pride thing. I can take on the challenge of whoever it is.”
Part of it’s Grimes lastly being wholesome after battling an annoying sore foot. The different half is a rotation change that thrusts the Knicks’ two high defensive guards — Grimes and Miles McBride — in additional distinguished roles.
The pair of 2021 draftees (Grimes went twenty fifth general, McBride went thirty sixth) ready for this second by scrimmaging one another on the course of assistant coach Darren Erman.
“It was one-on-one last year when we weren’t playing much,” Grimes stated. “I would guard (McBride) before a game, after games he would guard me. So that just makes it easier when both come together as one.”
The rotation change — which despatched Derrick Rose and Cam Reddish to DNP standing — has additionally include a method adjustment.
You may recall these preseason declarations from the Knicks and Thibodeau about modernizing the Knicks. They needed to play quick. They needed to shoot extra 3-pointers. They needed to gentle up the scoreboard and meet up with the NBA pattern. Rose and Julius Randle devoted their offseason coaching to that goal.
It was a well-known plan from earlier seasons, and one which rapidly fell by the wayside as soon as video games began. But this time, the Knicks have put forth an earnest effort.
And we’ll see if that continues after these wins in opposition to the Cavs and Hawks, when the Knicks deployed the old-school Thibs strategies of taking part in sluggish, taking part in protection and retaining the rating low.
It was a throwback to the type that labored so properly for the Knicks in the course of the pandemic season, though two video games with this new rotation — irrespective of how encouraging — isn’t sufficient for Thibodeau to attract conclusions.
“I don’t think you ever have it all figured out,” he stated. “I think each day is different, so hopefully we’re building the right habits. That’s the whole goal, is to improve every day. We’re getting more information on who works well together, how the team functions, and the most important thing is how the team functions. So, that has to be first and foremost for everyone.”
In the wins over the Hawks and Cavs, the Knicks averaged a tempo of 96.25 possessions per recreation, which, projected throughout the season, can be the slowest within the NBA proper now. Over their 25 video games so far, the Knicks rank thirteenth within the league with 102.7 possessions per recreation.
So there was a marked distinction and, consequently, the Knicks held the Hawks and Cavs to underneath 90 factors every.
These might be simply scores of circumstances. The Cavs have the NBA’s slowest tempo and the Hawks had been lacking two of their finest gamers, together with guard Dejounte Murray.
But there’s no query this deserves an extended look with Grimes because the perimeter stopper. He’s finest suited to the job.
“I think if you guys recall from last year, he showed us how good he was defensively,” Thibodeau stated. “And so I think he’ll only get better and better as he gains more knowledge, becomes more familiar with each guy, he studies and he’s just got a knack for it. He’s got a tenacity about him.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com
