Griffin Wong breaks down his analysis, prediction, and pick for Knicks at Rockets on Tuesday.
This closing stretch of the season might well feel like deja vu for New York Knicks fans, as at the end of March last season, they were 47-27, eight and a half games behind the Boston Celtics for the second seed in the Eastern Conference. Entering play tonight, they’re just two games behind the Celtics at 48-27, but still in third.
If New York wants to avoid facing Boston in a road second-round series again, tonight’s game against an out-of-sorts Houston Rockets team is critical. The Rockets face similar stakes in the closing stretch; while they have a fairly solid hold on the sixth seed in the West, proving that they can beat a contender-level team would be a nice boost heading into the postseason.
Both teams should have pretty healthy rosters; besides their two-way players, the Knicks will only be without Landry Shamet (knee), with Miles McBride (pelvic) questionable. Houston’s only injured players are Fred VanVleet (ACL) and Steven Adams (ankle), who have both been out for most or all of the season.
The game is effectively a toss-up, with New York -112 on the Moneyline at DraftKings Sportsbook and the Rockets -108. The point total is set to 217.5. Below, I’ll break down this inter-conference matchup and offer a prediction.
New York Knicks at Houston Rockets preview, prediction
The Knicks are coming off of back-to-back competitive losses to a pair of playoff teams in the Charlotte Hornets and the Oklahoma City Thunder, but overall, they’ve been good since the All-Star break, going 13-7 with the league’s eighth-best net rating across that span. For the season, they now rank in the top seven on both sides of the ball. Jose Alvarado has been a revelation since they acquired him at the trade deadline, as while his counting stats are muted (5.6 points and 3.8 assists per game), New York has been 8.6 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor. He’s been an excellent connecting piece to help cover for McBride as he recovered from abdominal surgery, though it’s unclear how Mike Brown will manage his rotations between the two now that McBride is back on the court.
Houston, meanwhile, is on a two-game winning streak, but both victories came against weak teams in the New Orleans Pelicans and the Memphis Grizzlies. All in all, the Rockets have gone 12-9 since the All-Star break, including a loss to the Knicks, but only two of those wins have come against teams among the top six seeds in either conference. The problems that plagues Houston early in the season continue to dominate the spotlight: it doesn’t have much spacing around the ever-brilliant Kevin Durant, who’s averaged 26.0 points per game on 55-42-88 shooting splits since the All-Star break, and it doesn’t have a secondary playmaker.
Knicks at Rockets pick, best bet
Between Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns, New York would seem — on paper — to be an offense-oriented team. But since the All-Star break, the Knicks’ defensive rating (seventh-best) has actually been better than their offensive rating (ninth-best), and if New York can maintain its sub-111 defensive rating to go while ticking its offense back up towards the 118.9 that it posted in the first half of the season, it absolutely could win the title. If he’s healthy, McBride could help with that; the Knicks have been 6.6 points per 100 possessions better on offense with him on the court. With or without McBride, though, New York should have a clear edge over the Rockets, who have had just the 15th-best offense and 12th-best defense since the All-Star break.
In particular, the Knicks have done an excellent job taking away the easiest shots in the game, allowing the seventh-fewest restricted-area attempts and the fifth-lowest percentage on such shots since the All-Star break, putting pressure on Houston’s sub-par shooters. That could make New York an even bigger challenge for the Rockets, who already have struggled to get to the rim since the All-Star break. The Knicks haven’t finished very well as of late, but Houston has allowed the 12th-most restricted-area tries per game across that span, so New York should be able to make a dent through volume if nothing else.
Both teams are elite on the glass; across the second half of the season, the Rockets rank third in overall rebounding percentage (second on offense and 12th on defense), while the Knicks rank fifth (eighth on offense, fourth on defense). New York should have a slight edge in transition play, if only because Houston has continued to struggle with turnovers, coughing up the fourth-most per game both for the season as a whole and since the All-Star break. Both teams are fairly disciplined, though the Rockets have a slightly better foul differential.
Shooting is where the Knicks should pull away. Houston has really struggled to generate easy looks as of late, attempting the third-fewest wide-open threes per game since the All-Star break, and while that’s not the only reason three-and-D wing Tari Eason has shot just 18.7% from deep since then, it hasn’t helped. New York could make the Rockets’ task a little easier tonight — across the same span, it has allowed the eighth-most wide-open threes per game — but Houston has also given up an above-average number, and between Brunson, Towns, and Mikal Bridges, the Knicks have three qualified shooters among the league’s top 50 by three-point percentage above expectation. The Rockets have two players in the top 50 (Durant and Reed Sheppard), but unlike New York, they also have three significantly below-average shooters (Jabari Smith Jr., Amen Thompson, and Alperen Şengün) to drag them down.
Even though home court advantage is a major factor — given the Knicks’ struggles away from Madison Square Garden, it amounts to a 10.7-point net swing relative to the same matchup at MSG — New York’s style of play makes it a good matchup. As long as Towns and Mitchell Robinson can effectively wall off the paint, Houston doesn’t have the shooting to make the Knicks pay for their sometimes lackadaisical closeouts, and New York has the size to keep the Rockets from dominating the glass as much as they usually do.
Best bet: New York Knicks -1.5 (+100)