The New York Knicks hit the ground running against Chicago.
The New York Knicks started strong against the Chicago Bulls and they never looked back after that in what culminated in a 136-96 takedown on Saturday night.
They outscored the Knicks 36-18 in the first quarter and that simply set the tone for what become one of their biggest blowouts of the season. They followed that performance with a second quarter that was just as strong, outscoring the Bulls 40-25.
Beyond that, the Knicks lightened up a little and only outscored the Bulls by three in the second half, but the damage was done long before the Bulls could do anything about it.
Setting the Tone
Setting the tone is a crucial skill in basketball. Coming from behind for a win is obviously possible and teams do it all the time, but the feeling that a team can instill by dominating their opponents as soon as the clock starts has a psychological impact that is tough to come back from.
Basketball is a highly psychological game and the energy that a team can generate can truly have an impact on the end result. Generating that energy sooner rather than later is a way to generate success and make things much easier on the team in charge of the momentum.
It also saves the conditioning of a team. They can have some space to breathe midway through the game and they can afford to rotate out some players instead o f having to enter survival mode and run their starters as much as possible.
Brown Likes What He Sees
Setting the tone with a huge start is something that the can make use of in the playoffs and it was an encouraging sign to head coach Mike Brown, who hopes to see more of that kind of effort from his team.
"We're not going to jump on people 38-16 every game, but hopefully we continue with the same mindset to start games with a sense of urgency, sense of physicality, making our opponents feel us," Brown said (via SNY).
The sense of urgency is what stands out the most. The Knicks have been on the wrong side of some hot start a handful of times this season, especially during their losing streak after the NBA Cup, and one of Brown's consistent complaints about his team was their lack of urgency and how that turned into a lack of effort.
Blowing out teams like they did to Chicago on Saturday likely won't become the norm for the Knicks anytime soon, but playing with an urgent mindset can be.