Why are the Knicks Good Exactly?

Let’s take a look at what the keys to New York’s success has been thus far:

Hot Starts & Smart Shots

The Knicks as a whole are the second highest scoring team in the first quarter (although the Lakers have been buoyed by scoring a combined 75 1st quarter points against the Suns & Rockets).

Carmelo Anthony is shooting a very impressive 54.9% from the field (28/51) & 53.3% from deep (8/15) in the first quarter. Outside of the first, he’s shooting 37.9% from the floor on 39 of 103 shots.

JR Smith, who seems more focused on the game of basketball this season, has been more selective in his shot taking. His career-high in FG percentage is 46.1% from the 2007-2008 campaign with Denver but he’s got it up to 48.1% in this young season. He’s also rebounding the ball at a much higher rate as opposed to leaking out, with 5.4 rebounds (again, the season is in its infancy & Amare & Iman Shumpert will come back & those numbers will probably go down but it’s still a good sign). As it stands right now, JR Smith is playing some efficient basketball (38th best in the league), contributing across the board; to put that in perspective, Chris Paul, Paul Millsap, Kevin Garnett, Anderson Varejao, Rajon Rondo & many others fall below Smith in terms of efficiency so far this season.

Anyway, talking about JR Smith allows me to bring this up again. His was the very first behind the back dunk I saw executed and I’ve always loved it. Iggy, Pat Ewing Jr & John Wall all impress but JR originated (45? For real?).

Jason Kidd has been starting at the 2 so far. It’s been paying dividends with his assist to turnover ratio in the tops of the league. Kidd’s also up there in steals with 1.8 steals per game at only 24.9 minutes per game. While doing all of that as a youthful 39 year old, he also leads his team in True Shooting percentage (a measure of shooting efficiency that takes into account field goals, 3-point field goals & free throws) at 78.2% and an offensive rating (estimated number of points produced when the player is on the floor per 100 possessions) at 153. Basically, if you’re not a numbers guy, that means that J-Kidd is doing a lot really well when he’s on the floor.

Speaking of backcourts. Raymond Felton & Pablo Prigioni have generated 34.2 & 30.1 assists respectively when they are on the floor. This means that there is a field goal created from a pass when the players in question are playing, meaning to say that ball movement is infectious & when Jason Kidd only have an assist percentage of 17.7, it means Pablo & Ray are doing work.

A little Prigioni magic.

All of this has accounted for an impressive 7-1 start, leading the league in field goal percentage, field goals made & leading the league in point differential with +10.5.