How the Knicks have used offensive rebounding to turn into a top-five offense
The Knicks have ranked as one of the best offenses in the NBA this year by net rating, yet rank in the bottom third of the NBA in many shooting percentages. How has elite offensive rebounding helped prop them up?
When we think of or discuss elite NBA offenses, it’s safe to say that “efficiency” is going to be one of the buzzwords tossed around. Variations of “teams need to shoot efficiently” or “teams need to take the shots with the highest points-per-shot value” are statements you’re most likely going to hear or read. Generally speaking, these assessments are usually right; the elite NBA offenses are teams that score efficiently and have a great “shot quality” metric, among other things. So how are the 2022–23 New York Knicks ranked third in offensive rating and ranked 20th in both true shooting and effective field goal percentage?
The Knicks’ offense has certainly been discussed and explained by many outlets. We all know how it works: attack the rim and have 48 minutes of great offensive rebounding. It’s nothing “evolutionary,” rather it’s quite simple. But what makes this almost luddite offensive approach so fascinating is that the “analytics” very much support the way the Knicks play offense. Yes, those pesky “analytics'' that are ruining the game. The same “analytics” that tell you to shoot a bunch of 3-pointers and shots at the rim while never taking a midrange shot.
If you’ve been following the NBA closely or even reading some the research done here at the Strickland, you should already have an idea of how the last half of the previous paragraph are the lazy, uninformed takes you’ll see on Twitter or talking head sports shows about NBA analytics, math, nerd shit, etc. The numbers haven’t supported these ideas for a number of years now. You know how the Knicks have what The Strickland’s own Prez calls an “analytic grifter offense?” Volume.
Focusing on volume is one of the most analytically-supported ways to having an effective and efficient offense whether or not the shooting efficiency is there. Yes, volume. The very thing players like Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson get criticized for since they do not have shooting percentages or a shot profile like James Harden or Tyrese Halliburton.
We need to start from the very beginning to explain how this analytically-sound volume approach of NBA offense works. The goal of offense is to score as many points as possible against your opponent. What’s the most effective way to score points? “Taking and making” as many shots as possible is of course a correct answer, but how do you get shot attempts? You must have offensive possessions. Let’s look at data.
The tighter the data points are along the trend line, the more correlated the variables are. Offensive possessions have a higher correlation to total points than true shooting and even shots attempted. And this is actually very intuitive when you take a step back. Yes, scoring within the possession efficiently is extremely important — you need to have as many scoring opportunities as possible in order to score as many points as possible. It’s almost like an ordered hierarchy in a way?
Maybe, maybe not, but this does bring us to the second part of this equation. So, if having as many offensive possessions as possible allows your offense to have the opportunity to score as many points as possible, how do you generate offensive possessions? There are three notable ways to make this happen, with two of the ways being on the defensive side. The first one is the obvious one: offensive rebounds. We are going to circle back to that in a minute because that’s technically not true, so just hold your horses. The other two? Generating turnovers (another obvious way) and… missed shots.
When a team misses more shots, that leads to more rebounding opportunities. The more times you secure the defensive rebound, the more offensive possessions you get. The Knicks ranked fourth in opponent total live-ball missed shots, behind Milwaukee, the Lakers, and Memphis, respectively. This approach helps make up for the fact that New York is not a team that forces turnovers at a high rate, ranking sixth-worst in total opponent turnovers.
I already know that you just got back from screaming, yelling, throwing a fit about missed shots because “WHAT ABOUT LUCK ADJUSTMENTS?!?!?!?!?!” Blah, blah, blah. Here’s the thing, when you hear or read the term “luck” when discussing all things related to NBA shooting, it just means that a specific phenomena can’t or isn’t being explained quantitatively. If you want to argue whether or not New York’s defense is actively causing their opponents’ shots to be missed, go and have at it. Unless we are sitting down in the film room, watching game film at least three times over with Tom Thibodeau while performing manual data collection, we aren’t going to know if the defender affected the shot. What we do know is that something happened on the court that led to the Knicks’ opponent to miss a shot. That missed shot led to a defensive rebounding opportunity, which led to an offensive possession… You get the picture here.
We are now on the offensive side of the ball and this is where offensive rebounding comes into the picture. When a team gets an offensive rebound, it does not restart the possession, rather it is simply an extension of the same possession. This is where and how a team can have poor shooting percentages but efficient offenses. Let’s break down a scenario.
Team A brings the ball up, takes a 3-point shot and misses.
They grab the offensive rebound and kick it back out to the top of the key.
Team A gets another 3-point shot, misses, but gets the offensive rebound, makes the put-back attempt, and draws the and-1.
Team A converts the 3-point play.
So, Team A takes a total of four shots: two 3-pointers, a put-back layup, and a foul shot. That rates out to 0.75 points per shot if you include the free throw, 1.0 points per shot if you do not. The field goal and effective field goal percentage of the possession is 33.3%, with a 43.6% true shooting figure. These percentages are well below league average and not efficient at all, and when you include the free throw attempt, 0.75 isn’t shattering any records, either. HOWEVER, what is the points per possession value of this specific offensive possession? Three points per possession, and that is a great and efficient number to have.
Maximizing the number of shots a team can take within a possession is critical here, because generating as many offensive possessions as possible is not entirely in the hands of a team. The only control a team has on the amount of offensive possessions they can take is to take as many shots as possible quickly and early in the shot clock. That leads to poor shot selection, which is something the Knicks do try to avoid. On the defensive side of the ball, you need to put your defense in a position to both affect the shot release and box out to secure the rebound. Opponents are also actively trying to make shots and get offensive rebounds. There is no concession. This is where that “you gotta win every 50-50 ball” type of expression comes from. Teams on defense need to be able to secure the loose ball in order to get possession.
We are now at the “how do we maximize the number of shots within a possession?” part of this now 1,200-plus word article. The answers have been touched upon already, but here are the specifics. What we know already is that getting offensive rebounds and taking foul shots increases the number of shots a team takes within a possession. How do the Knicks put their offense in that position? Attacking the rim. Let’s look at the data:
Generating 2-point shooting fouls and offensive rebound rate are both positively correlated with shots at the rim. Again, we are tapping into what is a very intuitive conclusion. You’re taught to never foul jump shooters and contest shots at the rim on defense. When contesting a shot at the rim, especially off of a drive, the offense is more than likely to force the defense to rotate. If successful, that means the defensive player/anchor who’s guarding the offensive player in the dunker’s spot (most likely) has to step away from his man to guard the dribble penetration, creating an ideal situation for either a lob or an offensive rebound.
What makes attacking the rim over and over and over and over again so much more appealing than simply settling for 3-point shots at this macro/team level is the increased likelihood of a made basket. Let’s provide a hypothetical. Shooting 40% from three and 60% from two — let’s specifically say at the rim for the purposes of this article — generates the same points per shot value of 1.20 (0.40 x 3 = 0.60 x 2). It’s the same value of efficiency at the per-shot level, but there is a notable difference between the two shots. While 40% from three is elite and you take that every game, you’re still missing 60% of your shots with a decreased likelihood of generating a shooting foul or an offensive rebound, i.e. generating second-chance opportunities to score a basket within the possession. If you’re making 60% of your shots at the rim, you’re missing only 40% of the shots while increasing your opportunity at getting shooting fouls and offensive rebounds, i.e. finishing the possession with points.
So, what does all of this mean? The Knicks don’t always fully execute this approach, but this is the crux of what they are attempting to execute. By going with a volume approach to efficiency, this allows New York to control the pace of the game. Not “pace” the statistic, rather pace in terms of time of possession and the flow of the game. New York ranks fifth in turnover percentage, third in isolation possessions per game, and have two players who are elite at generating double teams. Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle rank fifth and 12th in possessions double-teamed per game and rank ninth and third in team points per possession when double-teamed, per NBA Stats. New York minimizes turnovers by playing in isolation and are forcing teams to send a second guy towards two players who are making the right play time after time after time. A constantly rotating defense means players are out of position, which in turn makes getting offensive rebounds significantly easier; the Knicks are second in offensive rebound percentage, per Basketball-Reference.
Now take in all of this and imagine if the Knicks’ shooting comes around.
