A Deep Dive into the New York Knicks Lineups

After 17 games, the New York Knicks rotation has taken shape. Let’s dive into their best and worst lineup combinations.

The New York Knicks have survived a difficult start to the 2023-24 schedule with a respectable 10-7 record. After a rocky 2-4 start, they leaned on continuity and depth to string together wins. Oh yeah, and their stars started hitting shots, too.

Still, they have a way to go before hanging any banners. The most recent loss against the Phoenix Suns highlighted the team’s greatest flaws: without a top-10 star of their own, they have little room for error against the league’s most talented players.

With impressive depth and second-round-or-better expectations, Coach Tom Thibodeau has his feet to the fire whenever the Knicks can’t keep up with a contender or let a game slip away. By my accounts, he’s done a decent job managing minutes, but fans and media will continue to second-guess his decisions each time the team feels uncompetitive (as is our job).

I dove into the Knicks’ minutes and lineup data (via NBA.com) to see which combinations have shined, which have been played out, and which have yet to be uncovered. Here’s what I found:

Knicks Minutes Distribution

There’s a lot to say about the Knicks’ minutes distribution. We’ll get to Immanuel Quickley and the starting shooting guard dilemma later. For now, I want to point out the 1.6-minute difference between RJ Barrett and Josh Hart. In the five games RJ has missed, Hart averaged 34.6 minutes (per Statmuse), compared to just 25.8 minutes per game when Barrett plays. In other words, it’s not a huge deal, though I’d still like to see RJ around the 32-minute mark.

These numbers also raise a valid question: If the Knicks do acquire a wing or forward this season, who loses minutes? Would Tom Thibodeau be open to a 10-man rotation? That’s a conversation for another day, but one to consider as we dive into the good, bad, and ugly lineups we’ve seen so far:

Net Rating

Before I throw a bunch of numbers at you, I want to explain what offensive and defensive ratings quantify.

Offensive rating: The number of points a team scores per 100 possessions (about the length of an NBA game), The Kings led all teams with a 118.6 offensive rating in 2022-23 (per the NBA).
Defensive rating: The number of points a team gives up per 100 possessions. The Cavaliers led all teams with a 109.9 defensive rating in 2022-23.
Net rating: The difference between the offensive and defensive rating, or how many points a team would outscores their opponent by after 100 possessions. The Celtics led all teams with a 6.7 net rating in 2022-23.

No, net rating is not the end-all-be-all stat. But it does provide good context for how a lineup has performed over time. It also happens to be a stat Tom Thibodeau uses to justify his decisions, like when he defended the Evan Fournier benching.

The Starters

Appearing in 11 games together so far, the Brunson-Grimes-Barrett-Randle-Robinson lineup has been strong, riding the highs of their continuity and consistency. In 182 total minutes, they sport a +7.0 net rating (113.1 offensive, 106.1 defensive), ranking among the top starting units in the league. Only the Boston Celtics, Houston Rockets, Denver Nuggets, Oklahoma City Thunder, Sacramento Kings, new-look Los Angeles Clippers and Milwaukee Bucks have better starting units (with at least 100 minutes played).

Their 53.9 assist percentage, though, is the third worst among 5-man units with at least 100 minutes together. To no one’s surprise, ball movement continues to be a weakness for a starting five that relies on heavy isolation from their top three shot creators.

The Bench

The Knicks’ third most frequent lineup is the primary bench unit of Quickley-DiVincenzo-Barrett-Hart-Hartenstein. In 95 minutes, they have a stellar +14.7 net rating (115.7 offensive, 101.0 defensive). Their 57.1 assist percentage is indicative of more emphasis on cutting to the rim, executing dribble handoffs, and running in transition.

At the start of second and fourth quarters, the Knicks’ bench devours opposing reserves, but they also tend to step up when the starters underwhelm. Friday’s 21-point comeback against Miami would not be possible without the 29-11 fourth quarter led by Quickley & Co. Fittingly, the Knicks lost the first and third quarter and won the second and fourth that game.

You might have noticed I skipped the second most frequent 5-man unit. With RJ Barrett missing five games, the Knicks inserted Josh Hart in his place. Even when RJ returned, Thibs continued to run Hart with the starters, often making him the first player off the bench. One would expect Quickley, the 2023 runner-up for Sixth Man of the Year, to be, well, the sixth man. But alas.

Josh-Hart-plus-starters has been consistently bad. They have a -10.4 net rating (98.6 offensive, 109.0 defensive). With Hart in, the Knicks have another passive player on offense, with the other being Quentin Grimes. Opposing teams will live with Grimes and Hart making plays, and the starters don’t necessarily excel at finding cutters. All around, it’s a non-ideal fit.

So why does Thibs, who used net rating as a reason to sit Fournier permanently last season, continue to make this the first substitution of the game? When the starters come out flatfooted, as they did against Phoenix on Sunday, it feels like the Hart-for-Barrett swap is the worst move to make, especially when the Knicks have the best bench player in the league.

The Immanuel Quickley Dilemma

There are 16 Knicks lineups that have played at least 10 minutes together. Immanuel Quickley is part of 11 of them, and eight of those have positive net ratings. In the 32 two-man tandems with 100+ minutes together, Quickley is part of seven, and every single one is in the green.

Jalen Brunson and Immanuel Quickley are a +9.7 together with the best assist/turnover ratio of any key Knicks duo at 2.10. Quickley and RJ Barrett are a +17.7. Quickley with the starters (in place of Grimes) are an insane +48.2 in 12 minutes (small sample size, but why have they only played 12 minutes together?). Even if you slot Hart in for Barrett with Brunson, Randle, and Robinson, they are a +28.6 in 55 minutes.

This isn’t to say that Immanuel Quickley should start—he certainly could, but staggering his minutes with Brunson’s is not something I expect Thibs to handle well. Making Quickley the first player off the bench is a bare minimum expectation. He has elite chemistry with RJ Barrett and provides Brunson with a reliable ball-handling outlet whenever he needs one. Even as the backup forward, there’s no reason Hart should play more minutes per game (even when RJ is healthy) than Quickley.

Let’s see if that trend shifts over the course of the season as his extension drama continues to loom.

Knicks Starting Shooting Guard Position

The Quentin Grimes vs. Donte DiVincenzo rhetoric was and still is slightly overblown. Do I wish Grimes had DiVincenzo’s shooting confidence? Absolutely. At this point, Grimes has nothing to lose—Tom Thibodeau has had no issue benching him for long stretches when he’s hesitant to shoot.

DiVincenzo fit nicely with the starters next to Hart (+20.0 altogether) to form the Villanova Wildcat trio with Brunson (this trio actually never started together in college). He hit four threes against the Wizards that game, then doubled down with seven threes the very next day against the Hornets when Barrett returned.

A back-to-back against the current 12th and 14th seeds isn’t enough to justify a lineup change. Not to mention the stellar defense Grimes provides at his very worst and the chemistry that would be lost from the bench unit. I’d like to see a larger sample size before electing to change a top starting unit in the NBA.

The Closing Lineup

Even more important than the starting lineup is the closing unit. In my preseason Quentin Grimes article, I alluded to the dilemma Thibs would face this season choosing between five players—Grimes, Barrett, Hart, Quickley, and DiVincenzo—to close with Brunson, Randle, and Robinson each game. It’s a good problem to have, and an answer has seemed to reveal itself over time.

Immanuel Quickley leads the Knicks in fourth-quarter minutes per game with 8.8. He essentially plays one long shift in the middle of each half. Against the Suns and Heat, the second-half shifts extended to cover the entire fourth quarter. In crunch time, Thibs trusts his shot-creating and defense alongside Jalen Brunson. If only he trusted that more in the first quarter, too.

The other slot in the closing lineup is likely RJ Barrett’s to lose. His play directly dictates his minutes—as should be the case for everyone—and Thibs has called his name in two of the last few games to guard Jimmy Butler and Devin Booker, for better and for worse.

As I mentioned, the starting lineup with Quickley in for Grimes has an outlier +48.2 net rating, appearing in just three games and 12 minutes altogether. In a few months, this sample size should skyrocket, giving us a better understanding of how dominant that unit can be.

More Notes

● The Villanova Trio has a +1.0 net rating together in 86 minutes, appearing in 16/17 games this season. This is the definition of a Mid 3.
● Per PBP Stats, RJ Barrett has played zero minutes without either Julius Randle or Josh Hart on the floor. In other words, Thibs does not trust RJ to play power forward. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to try, right?
● The Brunson-Hart-Barrett-Randle-Robinson lineup we saw shoot bricks against the Heat in the playoffs has only played five minutes in one game together this season. Thibs has learned!
● Moving Quentin Grimes to the bench isn’t as plug-and-play as we might think. The tandem of Immanuel Quickley and Grimes has a -30.7 net rating in just 35 minutes. (For reference, Quickley and Deuce McBride have played 36 minutes together). When we filter down those minutes to only include time when Quickley is the point guard (as in, no Jalen Brunson on the floor), Quick/Grimes is a -20.92 in 14 minutes, per PBP Stats.

Just as I’d like to see RJ Barrett at the 4 in a few spurts, I’d like to see more lineups with Grimes and aggressive shooters like Quickley and DiVincenzo and a quarterback like Isaiah Hartenstein. All three guards are versatile enough to defend bench guards and wings, and the free-flowing offense could help Grimes regain his rhythm.

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