As you all know, the Knicks have been strong lately, winning seven straight games.
You're not A-Smith, and you probably don't care if the Knicks are strong or not.
I estimate that 80 percent of my readers are fans of Western Conference teams, and the remaining 20 percent of fans of Eastern Conference teams will not take the Knicks to heart unless you care about when and when Rose will get playing time again. The Knicks are strong, but not strong enough to threaten the 76ers, and the gap is even more pronounced as for the Celtics and Bucks further up.
But the Knicks recently won the Celtics, which slightly boosted the quality of this seven-game winning streak, and it is somewhat reminiscent of the problems they can create for the top teams in the Eastern Conference in the playoffs. Bronson has this experience, pulling down the sun, Doncic taking the main job, and he is not less helpful. After passing the jazz level, he is even more thigh. Therefore, even if Double Green and Philadelphia do not care, the knights behind cannot be wrong. The name Bronson came out, Mitchell was so bad that the tiger body was shocked, and the small tank that chased him actually chased to the east again?
Bronson is not simple, really not simple. When the Knicks signed that contract last summer, you could also use very restrained language to say, "Given the current price of the league's main attacker, and the expected increase in salary cap in the future, even if Bronson cannot sustain the playoffs, this diminishing contract with a low starting salary is unlikely to lose", then the evaluation must now be raised two notches. Bronson is a quasi-first-line attacker in the league, at least in the last two months, and what I call first-line attackers are the names you tear up every day, and you can roughly understand what Bronson is in these two months.
Entering 2023 to date, Bronson's data sheet is like this:
Averaged 28.6 points + 5.7 assists per game, shot 62% from the field, had a assist-to-loss ratio of 2.77, and played 38.7 minutes per game.
After the deadline, Bronson played two games with the Nets, and the player who led him was Mikal Bridges, and the Nets center was one of the candidates for this season's defense, and Claxton was quite good at defense. The background is like this, Bronson scored 40 points in one game, 39 points in one game, 30 points in the half, 16 points in a single quarter, and this quarter, I would like to call the offensive kaleidoscope of the main attacker in the small backcourt, dribbling, jumpers, footsteps, shots, impeccable.
Let's look at two basic skills:
Bronson blocked the right side, Bridges followed closely, Bronson stopped and leaned back to avoid Bridges' long arm hit;
Bronson blocked the left, Dinwiddie followed, Bronson accelerated to the left, stopped and hit backwards.
The seemingly mediocre blocking and holding shots are actually not simple. As a collection, neither shot is special, but if a player can always do it in large quantities every night, it is not easy.
The most common plot of the blocking is that the cover wall does not hang the defender behind it, and long-armed monsters like Bridges, they can follow from behind the cover wall to form interference, and if you go inside, there are basket guards waiting to attack you. That's why, Poole always stops near the free-throw line to find teammates - there are wolves in front of them, tigers in the back, and they don't grasp the shot, and then organize the ball, which in turn increases the cost of mistakes.
Bronson was on a team where the center was completely unresponsive, and he played blocks — unless it was for Randle to misplace tactics — and the ball was given from him, either directed to the basket or a chance for a teammate to finish straight out. Therefore, Bronson must rely on his personal ability to force some shooting space.
At just 1.88 meters, Bronson has no jump shot and no empty time, and he creates shooting space entirely by small technique and timing. For example, the above flung off Bridges' shot, relying on the poor inertia of the two people who stopped and ate, with a little back slipped over the fingertips, and flung off Dinwiddie, because there was a fake action of slowing down to the right leaning on people, making Dinwiddie think that he was going to "face the basket back", and then suddenly accelerated to the left to stop suddenly, Dinwiddie knew that he could not catch up, and went directly to the rebound position.
Bronson's season round share is 26.4%, the frequency of mid-range shots is as high as 54%, and the mid-range shooting percentage has been stable at around 50% for three consecutive seasons. What is this concept?
That's pretty much Irving's standard for the Lone Ranger.
Really, I really didn't mean it, with the same height, with a lot of mid-range digestion of the ball, technical flow of the main attacker, these keywords are put aside, you smell and you can find Irving. Even if you talk purely about the content on the court, using Irving as a reference is the most appropriate.
These are just two of the simplest examples, and Bronson will certainly be more than that. Bronson's technical moves are not fancy, and the feints are not large in amplitude but fast. In the following round, if you don't look closely, you may not realize that Bridges' stumbling is because Bronson has a suspected European step feint before throwing.
This kind of trick is not easy to detect when it appears alone, but when several tricks are used together, there is a sense of smoothness in one go. For example, Bronson got this set of Smart and Lowe, and the non-dominant hand body changed one-handed to follow up and down. At this moment, I just want to say to Puzi: "Be humble, you will, and others will too." ”
Bronson himself is a space creation machine. He doesn't have full authority to drive the energy of the team, so I call him a "small" core with the ball and can't be included in the "big" level for the time being. But the ball is certainly not Bronson's weakness, he does not open and close, it is not difficult to find teammates in a small space, and because of his dribbling skills, excellent development ability, careful and effective choices, he basically does not make mistakes.
In fact, Bronson's ball holding time is already in the top three in the league, and he is a veritable offensive playmaker for the Knicks, but the core cooperation with Randle who can digest the ball in large quantities cannot achieve a real big package. His drive has probably been underestimated, and last year's series against the Jazz may be more representative of his ability to digest the ball.
Having such a backcourt core, coupled with Randle who is very good this season, can also stand in the position and digest a lot of the ball with his personal skills, this makes the Knicks one of the strongest positional development teams in the league.
Of course, this "strongest" refers more to "quantity" than "quality", compared to some "intensive cultivation" teams with complete systems and excellent space, the Knicks are more based on their personal ability of "hard solution" play, will appear "forced" and "stiff". You will accept Randall arching Smart's whistle without sounding, squeezing out another position in the crowd, picking off the board and getting the ball gourd in, which has the primitive beauty of the fighting of the African savannah beast. But will upgrade his technology, Zhang Fei's embroidered big jump shot will be habitually uncomfortable.
The main attacker pulls a jumper, the center rushes to the board, and others open up space to shoot three-pointers, the Knicks are minimalist and "brainless", but at least during the 7-game winning streak, the Knicks seem to have everyone's functions so harmonious, Bronson and Randall around, with a bunch of quite useful puzzles:
Grimes just hit six confident three-pointers, and he will occasionally show you how much movement he swooped in and took off, and even gave his teammates a shot. These contents are not yet the norm, but they all hint that he will not be satisfied with a very simple role, and there is still room for the ball to rise in the future;
Hart's reinforcement perfectly complements a relatively missing role for the Knicks — the big guys who Grimes can't stand, like Tatum, who he can go to. He suddenly retrieved the deleted three-point skill pack from the hard drive in the Knicks, while not forgetting the passing ability, so that the Knicks have one more guy who can serve teammates in addition to the two cores;
Quickley is even more shocking. Putting Quackley, Maxie, and Highland together, looking at the past from afar, it is completely a product assembled on an assembly line. Attacking nerve knives and defending beaten as if they were fateful and inescapable. But objectively speaking, Quickley did not quite go down this path. He has a face that I can brainlessly pull three points to death, and actually contributes at least a qualified jump shot performance, with few mistakes and a few shots. Even his defense doesn't match his figure, and this clever rotation is considered to be wet.
It was 24 seconds after Gwee shot
The Knicks should have 7~8 very good, playoff players, and this reserve is not even a well-off home in the league with the Celtics. But in the East, there isn't much of a problem making sure to play the playoffs. This level of configuration, combined with the Knicks' draft picks, not too tight salary and age structure, is enough to maintain competitiveness in the long term. For this super-large market team that has not been happy for many years, it is already a good situation to appear as a strong team for a long time.
"Ladies and gentlemen, after so many years, I am finally comfortable."