{"id":595546,"date":"2026-02-10T23:36:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T23:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/595546\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T23:36:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T23:36:16","slug":"knicks-josh-hart-is-making-defenses-pay-for-sagging-off-of-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/595546\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks’ Josh Hart is making defenses pay for sagging off of him"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defenses are sagging off of Josh Hart \u2014 and the Knicks<\/a>\u2019 starting forward is making them pay.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of the best developments of a season riddled with championship expectations at Madison Square Garden: Hart entered the season resigned to playing the year with a splint on the ring finger of his right shooting hand, and in training camp, he was unsure how the injury would impact his streaky 3-point shot.<\/p>\n

How\u2019s a career-best 40.4% from behind the arc in his first season under new head coach Mike Brown?<\/p>\n

Hart shot 42.4% from deep in the month of January and 46.7% in February leading into Tuesday\u2019s matchup against the Indiana Pacers, the first leg of a back-to-back ahead of a road matchup against the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t ever call a play for Josh and he finds his way [into the scoring column],\u201d Brown said after Hart scored 19 points on 7-of-14 shooting in Saturday\u2019s victory over the Boston Celtics<\/a>. \u201cTeams keep putting their five on him and we tell him to let it fly. He\u2019s really good because he knows when to let it fly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hart said it\u2019s been an adjustment shifting into a more aggressive scoring mode given his default nature has been to get his teammates involved within the offense. It\u2019s a style of play he said he picked up in Portland while playing alongside an All-Star scoring guard in Damian Lillard.<\/p>\n

Hart said he frequently visited Mark Tyndale, a former assistant coach during his time with the Trail Blazers, to discuss his role on the offensive end. Coincidentally, Tyndale is also on Brown\u2019s coaching staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cMark Tyndale, who\u2019s here right now, I think one day I was venting to him. I was saying, \u2018Bro, I\u2019m not getting the ball. I\u2019m not getting any touches,\u2019\u201d Hart recalled. \u201cHe\u2019s like, \u2018We\u2019ve got Dame, we\u2019ve got all these guys. We\u2019re not saying you can\u2019t score. We\u2019re saying we\u2019ve got guys that are better and that\u2019s what they\u2019re here to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd from then on, I said let me work out how I can help these guys and find them in good positions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now part of a stacked starting five with All-Stars Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns plus two capable scoring wings in Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby, Hart finds himself in a similar position. Except this time, opponents are daring him to score the ball. If he doesn\u2019t, they will focus their efforts more on taking away his teammates.<\/p>\n

\u201cGames like this where that sacrifice is me having to go out there and be super aggressive and keep them honest,\u201d Hart said, \u201cSo it took a little bit of getting used to, but I think right now I\u2019m in a good head space with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hart said he considers it a sacrifice to have to take shots when he would rather be facilitating for his teammates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI turn down shots I don\u2019t know how many times. I love getting assists. I used to love scoring. Now I love getting guys shots, getting guys involved,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s the bad read because I should shoot it when I\u2019m open, but I love getting guys shots.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defenses are sagging off of Josh Hart \u2014 and the Knicks\u2019 starting forward is making them pay. It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3786],"tags":[7,479,164,4025,4024,327,304,6,255],"class_list":{"0":"post-595546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golden-state-warriors","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-golden-state","10":"tag-golden-state-warriors","11":"tag-goldenstate","12":"tag-goldenstatewarriors","13":"tag-josh-hart","14":"tag-knicks","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-warriors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116048965640255011","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}