The New York Knicks are 9-5 after getting their first road win of the season on Wednesday against the Dallas Mavericks. It’s a pretty solid start for a team with conference championship aspirations, especially one with a new head coach, but seems like it’s not good enough for Kendrick Perkins.
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Big Perk was critical of new Knicks head coach Mike Brown on the latest episode of Road Trippin’. No matter how much sense his cohost Richard Jefferson tried to talk into him, he refused to be swayed.
Perkins doesn’t like the way Brown is using Karl-Anthony Towns, and he thinks that needs to change if the Knicks are going to live up to their potential.
“Here’s my concern about the Knicks,” Perk said. “The most important players on the Knicks is Karl-Anthony Towns. He’s not their best player. Their best player is obviously Big Body Brunson. But when you look around the league, especially in the Eastern Conference, and you think about when you get to the postseason, who are you gonna have to go against?”
Perk then rattled off a few names like Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Bucks, the Pistons’ duo of Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart, and Bam Adebayo of the Heat to make his point.
Perkins believes Towns isn’t playing with any kind of consistency, and the reason is that Brown isn’t featuring him enough in the offense. “This Knicks offense, at times, when I watch it, looks like Mikal Bridges is the second option,” he said, asserting, “and that’s a problem.”
Towns has always been a big that’s capable of stretching the floor with his outside shot, but according to Perkins there’s been too much of that and not enough play in the post.
“Karl-Anthony Towns is one of the most skilled bigs we have ever seen,” Perk said. “I just don’t like the Karl-Anthony Towns in this system because he’s hanging around the perimeter too much … I think you have to have a balance.”
For what it’s worth, Jefferson said that he spoke to Brown before the game, and the coach acknowledged that the offense is still a work in progress. Brown assured Jefferson that more elements will be added to their gameplan as the season goes.
Furthermore, there are different expectations in his system for a center compared to the other four players on the court, so depending on which position KAT is playing at any given point (which is usually dictated by whether Mitchell Robinson is on the floor with him or not), he’ll have different responsibilities.
Fourteen games is still a pretty small sample size, but KAT’s numbers are more or less in line with what he did last year. His scoring is down 2.9 points per game, but he’s also playing almost two minutes less. That’s a good thing, as the Knicks wanted to stop taxing their starters so much under Tom Thibodeau.
Last year, KAT took 16.9 shots per game from the floor, 4.7 of which were 3-pointers. The balance has tipped slightly this year, as he’s now shooting 16.0 field goals and 5.9 3s. The problem is that his outside shot has been much less efficient, down to 31.7% compared to 42.0% last year.
Any realistic Knicks fan knew that it would take the players time to get acclimated to a new system, and all things considered, they’ve done an admirable job of learning on the fly so far. They’re currently third in the East, just a half-game behind the surprising Raptors for second.
Towns and the Knicks will figure out how all the pieces fit over the next 68 games. The real test will be whether they can go deeper in the playoffs, but it’s way too early to panic about that yet.
