Hawks vs. Knicks Game Preview

It’s rare that the Hawks, owners of a 6-21 record and the third-worst net rating in the NBA, get to play an equally bad team, but the stars will align just so on Tuesday night as Atlanta visits the New York Knicks. New York has an identical record and point differential to the Hawks, with seven losses of at least 20 points to boot. Few teams in the NBA have less talent and less direction, and none have made a greater show of their failures.

New York has toiled in relative obscurity this season, so it’s worth rehashing where the team is and how it got there. The Knicks spent the better part of the last two years publicly angling to sign superstar free agents who evidently had little to no interest in playing for one of the most dysfunctional franchises in the NBA. They missed out on Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and every other marquee free agent this offseason, but rather than pivoting to a youth-centric plan than would allow its young pieces to grow, the team signed four power forwards over the summer, blocking the development of R.J. Barrett, Mitchell Robinson, and Kevin Knox.

Game Time: Tuesday, December 17, 2019, 7:30 p.m. ET

Location: Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

TV: FOX Sports Southeast, MSG Network

Streaming: NBA League Pass, FOX Sports Go

When the Knicks stumbled to a 2-8 record, Steve Mills and Scott Perry held an impromptu press conference (possibly at the direction of owner James Dolan) to express surprise and remorse over the team’s struggles before firing head coach David Fizdale almost a month later. The front office and ownership have posited that the team is underperforming relative to the talent on the roster. In reality, the 6-21 Knicks are performing almost exactly as expected.

Very little about this team makes sense. Put aside Dolan’s many shortcomings as an owner for a moment to consider the fact that the front office assembled a roster full of players who almost all render one another redundant, then expected to challenge for the eighth seed in the East. That in seven consecutive years drafting in the lottery, the Knicks have yet to establish any sort of on-court identity. It’s fine to whiff on superstar free agents; many teams do that every year. But spare the notion that rich franchise history and geographic appeal somehow make you entitled to star players, and don’t then create such a bad environment for young players once you miss out on those stars.

Virtually none of New York’s veterans complement the players who are ostensibly the future of the franchise, and the team is predictably less than the sum of its parts. That isn’t an indictment of Julius Randle, Taj Gibson, or Marcus Morris, but a failure by the front office to correctly identify and prioritize the team’s needs. The pieces don’t quite fit with one another, let alone Barrett, Knox, and Robinson. A dearth of quality shooters or playmakers has created the least efficient offense in the NBA and a lack of good defenders has given the Knicks a bottom-seven defense. Morris is the only rotation player who reliably and efficiently creates for himself, and New York suffers from collective tunnel vision that often bogs down the offense.

The Knicks are one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the league – a product of playing so many frontcourt players together – which could be a problem for the Hawks, who rank last in defensive rebound rate. The Hawks also turn the ball over more often than any team in the NBA, and New York likes to push the ball off of live-ball turnovers. Creating offense outside of easy transition looks or second chances, however, has been a struggle for the Knicks. They rank dead last in effective field goal percentage and attempt the sixth-most long midrange shots in the NBA – an product of frequent isolations and a lack of floor spacing.

After a hard-fought loss to the Lakers on Sunday, Atlanta’s schedule will gradually begin to soften over the rest of the season. It will get John Collins back on December 23 in Cleveland. A win in New York is anything but guaranteed, but would be a good place to start for a team in search of its first real upswing of the season.