Advertisement

Kristaps Porzingis is frustrated by the Knicks' 'top to bottom' confusion

Dan Devine
Senior NBA writer
Kristaps Porzingis tries to make sense of it all. (AP)
Kristaps Porzingis tries to make sense of it all. (AP)

If the New York Knicks’ 2016-17 season hadn’t already featured so many valleys — point guards disappearing, franchise legends arrested and insulted, present-day All-Stars repeatedly slighted — you’d be tempted to call Sunday a new low.

[Fill out your NCAA tournament bracket here | Printable version]

The Knicks made the long trek across the East River to visit Barclays Center and got roundly outplayed and embarrassed by far and away the NBA’s worst team. A Rondae Hollis-Jefferson layup gave the Brooklyn Nets a 7-6 lead three minutes and 19 seconds into the contest, and the Knicks would trail the rest of the way, watching as Kenny Atkinson’s Nets bombed away from deep time and again to build a 22-point lead before holding off a late Knicks charge for a 120-112 win.

After playing the patsy in Brooklyn’s first home victory in 2017 following 16 straight losses on Atlantic Avenue, Knicks forward Kristaps Porzingis vented his frustration at the state of affairs for a team that seems incapable of picking a direction and sticking with it, in both overarching organizational approach and on-court tactics. From Al Iannazzone of Newsday:

“We’ve been switching things up because at any point of this season, we never played like we wanted to,” Porzingis said after fouling out with 19 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks. “It was like, ‘Maybe this will work. Maybe this will work.’ So we’re kind of looking for stuff.

“Coaches, they obviously try to do the best job they can and give us as much as they can so we have the information. But we never really got it together and were able to execute the way we should have. It’s been a lot of confusion.”

Porzingis said the confusion is “from top to bottom. A lot of stuff that’s not clear. So it’s hard to play like that.”

Porzingis’ comments came in the midst of the Knicks’ post-All-Star return to an emphasis on the triangle offense, the scheme preferred by team president Phil Jackson — and one the 7-foot-3 Latvian said he likes, and believes the Knicks should have been running since the start of the season.

It also came three days after the 11-time champion former head coach conducted a hands-on half-hour session to instruct several Knicks guards on how to properly run the triangle. That touched off a new round of familiar criticisms about Jackson’s refusal to cede control of the Knicks’ offense to the coach he’s hired, and what looks like him ostensibly trying to coach the Knicks by proxy through his insistence on hewing to the triangle.

“[Jackson] said he would” run more such instructional sessions in the future, guard Derrick Rose — who’s not the world’s biggest triangle fan — told Marc Berman of the New York Post. “All we got to do is wait and see when that is and go from there.”

[Follow Ball Don’t Lie on social media: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Tumblr]

Just how frequently the Knicks are actually running the triangle these days is a matter of some debate. That might be due to what Porzingis says is a general lack of understanding of just what it is they’re supposed to be doing in the offense. From Steve Popper of NorthJersey.com:

“First of all, we don’t really know the triangle that well. We’re really basic with what we do,” he said. “So a lot of times, it’s basically one-on-one. Whoever it is. Me, Carmelo [Anthony], Derrick, Courtney [Lee]. We just try to make something happen. And that’s not how it’s supposed to be. It’s very random.” […]

“[The level of frustration is] pretty high,” Porzingis said. “The situation is tough. We’re not doing the right thing. We’re just not working together right now. We need to find solutions. Whatever 16, 15 games we have left, we have to give everything we have so we can finish the season not regretting anything. As players we got to give everything we have.”

At issue, though, is that “everything we have” just hasn’t amounted to all that much for the Knicks, who have cratered since a 14-10 start to the season.

The Knicks have now lost three straight and five of six. They have the league’s fourth-worst record since Jan. 1, and are seven games out of the East’s eighth and final playoff spot with 15 games left. At least this year, the gray cloud comes wrapped in a silver lining; New York owns its own first-round draft pick, so each loss carries with it the possibility of improved odds of landing a top-three selection in the 2017 NBA draft — and, perhaps, a backcourt running buddy to pair with Porzingis in leading the franchise toward a more sustainably competitive future.

Hope for tomorrow can only take so much sting out of losing today, though. The Knicks sit just one loss away from clinching their fourth straight sub-.500 season, and for all the attention paid to which style of offense they are or aren’t running …

… it is their defense — which is conceding 108.8 points per 100 possessions, 25th among 30 NBA teams — that remains the Knicks’ most significant on-court issue.

That, according to Ian Begley of ESPN.com, has not escaped the notice of some of New York’s more senior players:

The struggles on that end of the floor have led some Knicks veterans to privately question their coach, according to sources. Hornacek has raised his voice more frequently in recent weeks — but those challenges have been ineffective. Whether the blame should be placed on the coaching staff or the players for putting forth a poor effort is open for debate.

But the internal finger pointing shouldn’t come as a surprise. That’s what happens when a team with high expectations fails miserably.

It also shouldn’t come as a surprise because New York’s vets were making this sort of noise all the way back in November, before the season ran off the rails. Although, considering the gassed-up evaluations of this year’s roster as a contender or (gasp) a “super-team,” maybe the Knicks never actually got on the rails this season.

In that respect, this year’s model hasn’t differed too drastically from many others of recent vintage. The Knicks entered this season with a lack of organizational clarity, with Jackson seemingly trying to walk two divergent paths at once, and have once again failed to make significant headway on either journey.

The team’s current All-Star forward has said plainly that he doesn’t really get what Jackson’s trying to do. Now, its hoped-for future standard-bearer — the crown jewel of the Knicks’ most recent total failure of a season, and the one guy they most need happy and flourishing for the long term — is sounding the same note, seeking anything that resembles a bright side in a second straight season gone dark. From Popper:

“There’s a quote like, a smooth sea never,” [Porzingis] said, searching for the words, “You know what I mean about the sea? Google it.”

We did. “Smooth seas never made a skillful sailor,” from Franklin Delano Roosevelt. At least give Porzingis this: he’s trying to find inspiration.

Or, failing that, just something to hold onto that will get him through the next four weeks.

More NBA coverage:

– – – – – – –

Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!