Mike Brown had a gut feeling.
The Knicks’ head coach relies on his trusted minutes sheet to divvy playing time across his top-heavy roster. Dalton Knecht’s name is on that sheet. The former Los Angeles Lakers’ No. 17 overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft now on a two-way contract with the Knicks had a zero next to his name.
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Not anymore.
The nature of Knecht’s two-way deal suggests he’ll split time between Westchester in the G-League and with the reigning champs as they aim to defend their throne in a suddenly stacked Eastern Conference. That may hold true. Yet the nature of his performance on Wednesday night suggests Knecht could position himself to compete for a more permanent role — on a team that never should have landed his services in the first place.
“It’s just a gut feel to throw him in towards the end of that first half. He’s a scorer, not just a shooter,” Brown said. “A lot of people think he’s a shooter [just] because he’s white. I hope I don’t get in trouble, but he can go get [buckets].”
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On another night, under other circumstances, Brown might not have played this particular wild card. But the Knicks didn’t only rule Josh Hart out due to nagging right ankle soreness on Wednesday. They also found themselves up an unfathomable 70-39 at the 3:20 mark of the second quarter.
Jalen Brunson effectively ended the game when he outscored the Bulls on his own, 22-21, in the first quarter. The Knicks went on to tie a franchise record set in 1988 with 84 points scored in the first half.
So why not? The whooping of epic proportions was already underway. A record-setting belt was being doled at The Garden. And Brown had already seen close to seven minutes of Mohamed Diawara in the first half.
It was time to see something new. So new it hadn’t tried the Madison Square Garden hardwood floors on for size.
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“It’s just a gut feel,” Brown said. “Like, [Knecht’s] on my, quote-unquote, minutes sheet. He’s down for zero minutes, you know?”
That something new was on the floor alongside the night’s starters: Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, Landry Shamet and Knecht on the floor in place of Mikal Bridges with 3:20 left in the second quarter.
A minute later marked a minute earned: Knecht went soaring through the air for a two-handed put-back dunk off of a Shamet missed corner three. And with six seconds left in the first half, Knecht created space from Chicago’s Matas Buzelis and hit a step-back 3 to put the Knicks up by 35.
“He played great. I think the way he was rebounding and getting out in transition, and just telling him to be aggressive no matter what the situation is,” Brunson, the Knicks’ captain, said of Knecht after the game. “And whether you know a player or not, being aggressive is important. And so aggressive mistakes are fine, so just stay aggressive, and he hit a big shot in the second quarter.
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“He’s going to be comfortable, and once he is, he’s going to play even better.”
In his second-half minutes, Knecht found Andre Drummond rolling to the rim on an alley-oop, made a pull-up 3 in transition and showcased a stop-and-pop mid-range two. Safe to assume he’s more than just a shooter — more than meets the eye — after his first game at the Garden.
“You know, [I’m] just like a three-level scorer,” Knecht said. “I think I just go out there and impact the game at all three levels.”
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Where Knecht will earn minutes — or lose them — will be on the other side of the floor for a Knicks team ranking sixth in defensive rating (108.5) after eight games. Knecht scored 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting from the field and 2-of-4 shooting from downtown, but the Knicks were outscored by nine in a game they won by 30 in his 16-plus minutes on the floor, many of which came in “garbage time.”
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“He can shoot from range, he’s got a medium game, he can get to the rim, he can pass. He’s got to work defensively,” said Brown. “And I thought tonight he tried to play within himself and contributed the best way he could. There were a couple of things defensively that he could do a little better. And that’s what he’s got to really concentrate on.
“But I thought he gave us a nice little lift, especially offensively, when he played towards the [end of the first] half.”
The 25-year-old, 6-6 wing out of Tennessee knows his playing time will be rooted in the ability to impact the non-scoring side of the ball.
“You know, I just want to show on the other side of the ball,” he said. “Get into the ball pressure and stuff like that and go on and grab a defensive rebound.”
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Knecht grabbed seven rebounds. He also recorded a chase-down block on Chicago’s Buddy Hield. His path to chasing down minutes on this championship Knicks roster is as complicated in theory as it is in practice.
In practice, Bridges, Anunoby and Hart will play the lion’s share of the minutes on the wing, and Jordan Clarkson and Shamet are the immediate backups. Knecht would compete for those scarce backup minutes.
In theory, of course, Knecht is not on a guaranteed contract. He is on a two-way deal, can only play in 50 games (49 now) and is ineligible for the playoffs unless his deal is converted to a standard NBA contract.
New York has also made it abundantly clear it is not going into the second apron to keep together or improve the roster that won last season’s NBA title. Theoretically, the Knicks, who signed James Wiseman to their final minimum salary slot beneath the second apron, would need to trade a player at the end of their payroll to make room for the conversion, which would check in at a $2.5 million salary in Year 1. (Wiseman, for what it’s worth, finished with eight points, eight rebounds and three blocks with just one missed shot in 10-and-a-half minutes against the Bulls on Wednesday.)
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And they would need a taker for the player they’re willing to part ways with to make room for Knecht, which could require valuable second-round draft compensation given teams know how dire New York’s cap situation stands today.
For now, Knecht’s performance was just that: a performance. A one-off knowing Hart will be back to further crowd Brown’s minutes sheet.
But there was once a zero next to his name. Now, at bare minimum, there’s a question mark. Because Brown trusted his gut feeling. Knecht just gave him a reason to trust it again.
“I wasn’t surprised [to hear my name called],” he said. “I just came in ready to go. The coach said, ‘you’re active,’ so I just needed to be ready.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
