The Knicks were 8-10 last night (Wednesday) when they hosted the Philadelphia 76ers, far and away the worst team in the NBA. The Nets, who also have seen a lot of losing nights, will be at the Garden tomorrow evening for the first get-together between the city rivals this season before the Knicks travel to Milwaukee to face the Bucks Saturday at 8:30 p.m.
By and large, sound defense has been the Knicks’ most consistent and positive collective attribute roughly 20 games into the 2015-16 campaign. Before playing the 76ers, they were tied at ninth in the league with the Charlotte Hornets in opponents points allowed per game, surrendering only 98.8.
The challenge for head coach Derek Fisher’s squad is learning how to balance the efficacy of holding teams to relatively low scoring outputs without committing an overabundance of fouls. The Knicks were ranked 29th out of the NBA’s 30 clubs in fouls per game, chopping up challengers at a clip of 22.9. It is critical those numbers begin to trend in the opposite direction considering the Knicks’ weakness in getting to the foul line.
The 24 fouls they committed against the Houston Rockets Sunday at home in a 116-111 overtime loss led to 36 free-throw attempts and 23 made by the Rockets. In comparison, the Knicks only took 15 foul shots, converting 13. The 10-point disparity was significant.
Overall, the Knicks were minus 6.4 in the free-throw attempts differential, which was the poorest in the league, and minus 3.4 in the foul shots made differential, which placed them 28th. The numbers in part reflect the Knicks’ inability to frequently get to the front of the rim in half court sets.
With the exception of rookie guard Jerian Grant, no Knick is an effective penetrator.
