Julius Randle’s Postseason Summary
The point of this tweet is to share my thoughts & some stats that I thought were shocking.
1st off effort was an issue for him at times in the postseason the worst games were Game 4 in the 1st round & Games 3 & 4 in the ECSF. That is a problem but moving forward with experience & maturity that doesn’t concern me as much as it does other’s & that’s ok.
Now 2 stats that I found shocking & in my opinion a reason why it was so hard to get Julius in rhythm & have confidence consistently.
1st stat: 33% of Julius’ Field Goals Attempted in the postseason were considered late in the shot clock. 33%!!! Some will say it’s cause he holds the ball too long but we can all agree the Knicks lack shooters, spacing & off ball movement. Late is considered under 7 seconds in the shot clock. More than 50% of those late attempts were with under 4 second left in the shot clock which is considered very late. Anyways 1/3 of his shots were basically shot clock grenades. @jj_redick alluded to this on the broadcast of Game 6 & on ESPN after Game 4.
2nd stat: In the regular season Julius Randle averaged 3 FGA per game in the 4th quarter. We all know he has struggled in the 4th but he improved in the 4th quarter the 2nd half of the season. His FG% was higher in the 4th than his season average. Now in the postseason Julius Randle’s FGA went down all the way to 1.3. I don’t care how bad or unclutch any player is you don’t want your 2nd best player/offensive player being iced out in the 4th quarter. Yes he has had his struggles but how do your shot attempts go down in the 4th. I’d much rather live with the result of him failing shooting than just standing their being a decoy.
These 2 stats were frustrating to me & I wonder why Thibs chose to use less of Randle. As we know Randle would be covered by DPOY candidates & just stayed at the 3 point line to keep them out of the play. Basically being used as a decoy. In the 1st Round there were stretches of 1-3 minutes where he was covered by Cedi Osman or Danny Green yet we didn’t do a good job of exploiting those mismatches. I think this effected his confidence.
Now for a positive stat(s). Even with Julius Randle’s postseason struggles he was one of four Knicks that had a positive net rating in the playoffs the other 3 were Jalen Brunson, IQ & QG (IQ & QG missed more games than Randle). Julius Randle also had the highest net rating of any Knick player in the ECSF.
My final thoughts are that most will attack me & say I’m making excuses. Some will try to put words in my mouth. I am not saying Julius Randle had a good postseason, NO he did not perform like he was capable of. What I am doing is providing context from my POV. As most know I am biased, I love Julius Randle as a player. Not excusing his bad play but don’t tell me a 28 year old can’t improve his game in the future & can’t improve his mental. I believe in him. He has a long career ahead of him wether it’s in a Knick jersey or not.
Julius Randle’s Postseason Summary
The point of this tweet is to share my thoughts & some stats that I thought were shocking.
1st off effort was an issue for him at times in the postseason the worst games were Game 4 in the 1st round & Games 3 & 4 in the ECSF. That is a problem… pic.twitter.com/E6X9qyVeNe
— Playoff P Basketball (@playoffpbball) May 14, 2023
by Duck_God69
10 Comments
however people feel about randle, i think we ALL agree that his trade value is significantly higher than it was last offseason.
This is exactly how I feel and what I have been trying to tell people on here the last few days. But all they care about is saying he needs to be traded. If the Knicks trade Randle they will regret it.
In short he’s providing some context to Ju’s struggles. That’s fair.
A lot of those issues sound structural, but presuming thibs is back I’m not sure that I have much belief that the offensive ecosystem around Randle would be much different?
What I find comforting is that he will damn near kill himself to improve his game in the off season like he has been in the past few years, improving each year. 1st year playoffs, 3rd year 2nd round playoffs…. I can trust in this, along with the other choices are FO has made. We will regret trading him
It has some truth to it. Randle does get the ball late in the clock and has to take some tough shots bc of it. He also creates this situation at times. The play where JJ mentioned it Randle parked in front of the ball handler calling for a post up. It took a couple seconds to find an angle to throw an entry to a stationary Julius. He decided a one on one post up late in the shot clock was the teams best option. This is part on him and part the nature of being a primary scorer. It’s also true the fg % goes down for a lot of primary scorers in the playoffs bc they are in these spots more
I will push back about him being used as a decoy, iced out, or his 4th quarter shooting % being higher for a reason other then he mainly shot put backs. Julius didn’t look like a guy that wanted to shoot in the 4th quarter.
He was better this time around then he was against Alt. I think he is maturing but he is still a player that struggles in high pressure spots.
It’s pretty obvious Randle and Brunson aren’t the problems. And providing context won’t help on this sub half the people saying trade him are zoomers who are taking summer classes.
It is an absolute shame that Hakeem isn’t allowed to run his private tutoring camps in the summer; he is the main reason why Amar’e was able to reinvent himself as an efficient post scorer with all the footwork he learned once his explosiveness started to wane.
Julius has the explosiveness and the first step to get to the basket, but we see him try to fastball passes to Mitch or find shooters when the easiest play seems to be to go for the shot attempt. Another issue with decision making is when he’s not aware of the clock; as you alluded to, he’s catching the ball with seconds ticking away near the end of the shot clock and he’s still trying to do size up dribbles. Another layer to that is he’s calling for the ball while being fronted and a help defender within reasonable reach to make a precarious position even more difficult. All these subpar decisions add up over the course of a game.
The ability and talent ARE there. But the difference between good and great is him being able and willing to refine his game to be more efficient. I’m not going to act like I know what they talk about in practices or in film, but the best way we’d figure out if he’s responding is in what we see on the court. No more letting the shot clock expire (and that’s also on his teammates and communication), no more zipping passes underneath the basket when it clearly hasn’t worked consistently for 75+ games.
From a front office standpoint, you’re going to have to add guys in that locker room who will at least have his ear.
Anyone who has ever played basketball or is a student of the game could tell you that the Knicks most problematic issues have nothing to do with the roster. The offense takes too long to run plays, they wear the shot clock out from lack of discipline not design. Spacing issues are not because “we need more shooters”, it’s actually because the team is not coach to properly rotate weak side and positioning is never consistent enough to assess openings in real time. What’s even more crazy about our iso ball style offensive scheme is that we hardly ever have a player call a clear-out to move bodies out the paint if we are committing to “tough shot making” as our image. I digress, but as Knicks fan and a basketball fan it is so frustrating to watch a team with players as exceptional as we have (yes I’m including Julius) just not give them the tutelage they need to creatively move the ball around and score.
My main thought is I had no idea tweets could be that long now
This guy used like an 8 game net rating sample size with literally no other numbers. And then asked for randle to get the ball MORE in the 4th quarter. Cool cool. Some idiot below me actually thought this proved anything and then used a zoomer with summer class reference when there is no way anyone over 17 is a randle fan. Watch the games and look at the numbers. This is nothing but deflection and I’m not even screaming to trade him but the ceiling is so clear with randle thibs and Barrett.