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The Heat are packing the lane and daring them to shoot. Now Tom Thibodeau gets to flex his creative muscles
During the first quarter of Game 1 between the New York Knicks and Miami Heat, there was a clear discrepancy inside. Even while playing without Julius Randle, the Knicks were smothering their foes on the interior. Miami scored 21 points in the opening frame, while New York put up 22 points … in the paint!
After the quarter, Erik Spoelstra and the Heat made an adjustment and began to take away the paint. After mixing in some zone possessions, they made a concerted effort to completely collapse on top drivers Jalen Brunson and RJ Barrett whenever they entered the lane. The Heat abandoned shooters on the wings and tried to win the nail hole.
That’s a sound strategy that could have some longevity. It’d be easy for the Knicks to blame the Game 1 loss on some poor shooting. Outside of Obi Toppin (who went a sturdy 4-11 from deep in Randle’s absence), the Knicks went 3-23 from downtown on their homecourt.
It’s more than a one-game failure, though. Since the playoffs began, the Knicks are shooting a paltry 28.5 percent on catch-and-shoot looks. It’s a weakness with their roster construction, playing two bigs most of the time and having some role players who haven’t been consistent from deep. What we can expect is for the Heat to continue to collapse on Brunson and Randle.
The Knicks must adjust. They typical play spacing that is heavy toward the baseline, with one of Mitchell Robinson or Isaiah Hartenstein sitting in the dunker spot only a few feet from the rim, and a shooter standing in the dead corner. Such spacing helps the lane get clogged very easily. In order to free up space for Brunson to get cleaner looks inside, Thibodeau may need to try some different plans.
Go Small
While it sounds counterintuitive to play Toppin fewer minutes after his 4-11 night from deep, a Randle-less Knicks team could benefit from going smaller to match the Miami Heat. Spoelstra has, by design, played smaller lineups with this team so they can fly around and scramble in defensive rotation. A potential counter is to go just as small, adding another threat off the bounce to put pressure on the rim and re-penetrate when Brunson or Barrett kick the ball out.
A lineup of Brunson-Quickley-Hart-Barrett-Robinson has a ton of playmaking juice built around their interior shot-blocker. Brunson, Hart, and Barrett are all strong enough to guard up a bit, while Immanuel Quickly alongside Brunson gives the Knicks their best chance at making a ton of shots. According to Cleaning the Glass, this five-man unit only played 42 possessions together during the regular season. It remains relatively unproven.
The tradeoff here comes on the glass, where the Heat snagged ten offensive boards in Game 1. However, if Toppin isn’t going to provide much impact on the glass, why not go smaller and get those points back on the other end?
Hunt switches in the middle of the floor
For most of the postseason, Thibodeau has not been shy about going mismatch hunting. Against the Cavs, for example, they would set countless guard-to-guard actions and try to get one of Darius Garland or Donovan Mitchell switched onto Brunson. The Cavs hard-hedged these to avoid the switch, thus opening up throwbacks and drives to the rim.
Miami switched those actions in Game 1, caring less about who is the primary defender on Brunson, knowing that an all-out collapse on the paint to turn him into a passer was going to come anyway. Part of the reason those switches were so easy and impactful was because the Knicks set these screens closer to the sideline.
If Thibodeau likes the idea of keeping Mitchell Robinson closer to the rim, having a guy like Josh Hart or RJ Barrett come up to set a high ball screen makes sense. Whether the Heat switch or try to stay, both have shown some dangerous moments creating out of the short roll. The ball gets moving and finds an open guy behind the three-point line.
This should be most impactful with Hart, who is a smart passer and is most likely to be defended by Miami’s weakest points like Duncan Robinson or Max Strus. If the Heat do not want to switch, this is a great way to take advantage of their efforts to hide a defender. It’s the postseason! You have to punish the weakest defender on the floor time and time again.
Unleash Isaiah Hartenstein
Most of these adjustments really just generate ways to get cleaner looks from three-point range and let the ball move more than having a Brunson kickout to a spot-up shooter. If the Knicks want to target the Heat inside, they need to make it harder for Miami to pack the paint. The best way to do that is to go to 5-out spacing.
Enter Isaiah Hartenstein, the Knicks backup big man who is a top-of-the-key passing savant. With the Los Angeles Clippers a year ago, Hartenstein was flawless in diming his teammates to layups. His backdoor cut-finding prowess worked so well against the Cavaliers in the first round and throughout the regular season. He is a master of the give-and-go.
Hartenstein is a credible option to take Bam Adebayo out of the lane in ways that Robinson simply isn’t. Mitch is purely a screen-and-roll, catch-and-finish big man. Putting the ball in Hartenstein’s hands atop the key also keeps it out of Brunson’s for large stretches, which makes it difficult for the Heat to load up and collapse specifically on Jalen.
The Knicks have gotten a lot of mileage out of their Delay action with Hartenstein in semi-transition.
His passing pops here, and it may be needed with the first unit. While Thibodeau relied on Robinson heavily in the opening round to dominate the Cavs on the inside, this matchup is a wildly different one. There’s no time to be tethered to Robinson, who was a team-low -13 in Game 1. If the fit is there to let Hartenstein create more atop the key, Thibodeau and the Knicks need to rock with it more often and let Isaiah play with Brunson for long stretches.
Yes, the Knicks need to knock down their open jumpers. They also need to manufacture easier looks at the rim to alleviate the burden on Brunson to create offense. With such a good option to pass atop the key already on the roster, now might be the right time to dust off the ole’ Delay series.
