Breaking Down the Numbers Behind New York Knicks' Dismal 2014

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Alarming trends are emerging in the Big Apple, where the New York Knicks continue to lose games in every way imaginable.

Looking at their record, realizing they're a mere half-game better than the tanking Philadelphia 76ers, it's easy to ignore deep data dives and instead deem the Knicks a hopeless case. But while they may be incurable, there's more to them than the 17-win pace they're presently playing at.

Leads are being squandered, comebacks are falling short, late-game gaffes are proving frequent and costly. The Knicks are losing games they're in position to win; they are not being blown out nightly. Their point differential (minus-5.57) is incredibly close to that of the Orlando Magic (minus-5.17), who have five more victories and are flirting with eighth-place contention in the Eastern Conference.

Eleven of their first 23 games have also been decided by five points or fewer. They're 2-9 in those contests. Fifteen of their first 23 games have seen them trail or lead by no more than five points in the final five minutes. They're 2-13 in those situations, including a lengthy losing streak, per The Wall Street Journal's Chris Herring:

Knicks' 13-gm losing streak in tight games is NBAs longest since 2007, when Celtics lost 14 straight gms in clutch scenarios, per Stats LLC.

- Chris Herring (@HerringWSJ) December 8, 2014

To wit: There is more to the Knicks than their record.

For better or worse, correctable or irreversible, there's more to their lousy season than wins and losses could ever measure.

Systematic Symptoms

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It all starts with the triangle. Everything does.

Installing a new, complex system prided on ball movement and precision motions always promised a painful transition. But the Knicks have amplified typical complications. Their offense ranks 21st in efficiency, and their shot selection resembles something out of the late 1990s, early 2000s.

More than 38 percent of the Knicks' field-goal attempts are coming from mid-range, of which they're hitting just 41.5 percent. Their 31 mid-range jumpers per game rank second in the NBA, behind only the Los Angeles Lakers.

Such a shot distribution is common of a below-average offense in today's three-point-heavy NBA. Below you'll see how every team who jacked at least 30 mid-range jumpers per game since 2010-11 fared relative to the league's offensive performance:

Source: Basketball-Reference/NBA.com.

It's been almost impossible to shoot that many mid-range jumpers and register an above-average offensive rating. The lone exception is this season's Lakers, who are barely above the league mean.

The Knicks are also running their offense at the fifth-slowest pace in franchise history, using only 89.4 possessions per 48 minutes. That's markedly below the league average of 93.6 and hardly indicative of a top offensive attack. Of the 16 teams that played at a sub-average pace last season, 11 also fielded a below-average point-piling operation.

Erasing leads, however small, becomes more difficult when a squad isn't generating extra possessions and frequently sapping the shot clock of valuable seconds. More than 28 percent of the Knicks' field-goal attempts are coming inside seven seconds of the shot clock, so in most cases, they won't be shooting their way back into games.

That puts a bigger strain on their defense to get stops and make every possession count.

That, in turn, is problematic because the Knicks defense isn't good.

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New York ranks 27th in points allowed per 100 possessions and 25th in three-point protection. Derek Fisher has done away with serial switching, but now the Knicks don't switch at all.

There's a clear lack of versatility in how they defend, and the drastic shift in defensive principles appears to have created disconnect and confusion. Players are getting lost earlier, failing to bring help in timely fashions or drifting off their own man altogether.

This dysfunction apparently extends beyond the court as well. The Knicks have taken to infighting, according to ESPN The Magazine's Chris Broussard . Butting heads is basically a staple of any struggling team, but if the players aren't in sync with one another or their coach, it pits too many obstacles between the collective and an eventual turnaround-especially when games are close and outcomes on the line.

Diagnosing Clutch Ailments

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Clutch situations-defined as the final five minutes of a game in which five or less points separate both teams-have not been kind to the Knicks.

Both their offense and defense get worse, and their ball movement subsides entirely. They're also, out of necessity, playing at a faster pace, increasing the frequency with which they digress from the triangle's blueprint.

Source: NBA.com.

Increasing the pace at which they play-unavoidable when trying to overcome late-game deficits-promotes offensive chaos. When the Knicks stick to the triangle's tenets, they make mistakes.

Players are out of position, passes are being made prematurely and defenses are taking advantage, forcing the Knicks into turnovers 20.3 percent of the time, the fourth-highest mark in the NBA. They're not at a point where they can operate without thinking and capitalize on the free-flowing, reactionary ideals the triangle is supposed to instill.

Deviating from the system has been equally harmful, as Fisher alluded to, per ESPN New York's Ian Begley:

Fisher says the common theme in #Knicks' close losses of late is 'a level of attention to detail that we're still below in order to win.'

- Ian Begley (@IanBegley) December 8, 2014

Too often the Knicks are straying away from what kept them in the lead or within striking distance. The ball sticks, isolations become prevalent and off-rock movement is nonexistent.

Sometimes it's even impossible to tell the difference between this season's team and last year's squad-the one that idly stood by while Carmelo Anthony went one-on-one, one-on-two, one-on-three and so on. He's shooting 46.4 percent in clutch situations this season-including 40 percent from deep-but his usage rate skyrockets to 47.6 percent in those final minutes.

Anthony has also attempted (28) more than 30 percent of the Knicks' total shots (92) under these circumstances. That's once again made their offense incredibly predictable and easier to defend.

Opponents continue to torch their flimsy perimeter defense as well. Offenses are connecting on 50 percent of their deep bombs against the Knicks late in games, a conversion rate higher than what they're allowing overall (44.7 percent).

And with the Knicks falling on both sides of the floor when it counts, it's no wonder they've found themselves near the bottom of the Eastern Conference, incapable of emerging victorious from nail-biting contests.

Treating the Late-Game Flaws

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Everything that ails the Knicks isn't entirely fixable.

We can argue that flaws will diminish with time or that the Knicks will suddenly jell, morphing into crunch-time closers who get stops and score points when it matters most. But on more than one level, that's not who the Knicks are.

This squad isn't brimming with defensive talent. Only one of its key players, Iman Shumpert, is lauded for his defense, and his defensive rating in clutch situations (119.5) is worse than the team average (116).

Fisher's rotations aren't helping either. He hasn't found a defensive combination that truly works-likely an impossible endeavor-and he continues experimenting, even late in games, as Herring explains further:

To put it bluntly, Fisher's late-game decision-making has been downright puzzling at times, almost to where he appears to be daring opponents to exploit his miscues in key scenarios.

Take Friday's game against Charlotte, where the Knicks were clinging to a one-point lead with four seconds left. Following a timeout, Fisher sent Stoudemire and Hardaway-arguably the team's worst post defender and worst perimeter defender, respectively-onto the floor for the final defensive possession. Charlotte's Kemba Walker got a step on Stoudemire for a game-winning layup at the buzzer.

Why Fisher didn't sub in center Samuel Dalembert, who's third in the NBA in shot-block percentage, or Shumpert, the team's best perimeter stopper, for the final play?

Lineup continuity already feels like it will be a season-long strife. Fisher has thrown out 11 different starting lineups through 23 games, and the Knicks' most used five-man combination-Quincy Acy, Jose Calderon, Amar'e Stoudemire, Shumpert and Anthony-has played just 52 total minutes together over the course of only six contests.

Stable rotations are a pivotal part of regular-season success. The Knicks are already trying to master a new system; expecting the team to grasp a new on-court culture while the rotation resembles a revolving door doesn't make it any easier.

'We're trying to build something here that will last a long time,' Fisher said, per the New York Post's Marc Berman . 'It's a struggle right now. We're at the bottom. We're going to keep fighting until we are at the top.'

Never before has the top seemed so far away. This Knicks team was always going to battle the inherent complications of systematic overhaul and insufficient talent. The last thing it needs to do is what it's been doing all along-deviating from a mapped-out plan, however imperfect, amid interminable shifts of personnel.

Unless that changes, rock bottom is where the Knicks will stay.

*Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference and NBA.com and are accurate as of games played Dec. 9, 2014.