Winning over 84 percent of the time across such a large sample is insane. It is the rough equivalent of picking up 69 victories during an 82-game season. New York isn\u2019t feasting on a bunch of colossal differentials, either. Twenty-five of these 45 contests saw it win the turnover battle by<\/a> no more than three. Its record under this criteria is 21-4, the equivalent of\u2014you guessed it\u2014a 69-win pace.\u00a0<\/p>\n This is among the many, many benefits of having someone like<\/a> Jalen Brunson run the show. For all the qualms people have with his decision-making, he can shoulder superhuman workloads without flitting away possessions willy-nilly.\u00a0<\/p>\n After this year, he has now on four occasions posted a usage rate above 27 with a turnover percentage of 10.5 or less. DeMar DeRozan, Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard, and Kyrie Irving are the only active players with more<\/a>.<\/p>\n To that end, it isn\u2019t unreasonable to hope or expect the Knicks to consistently win the turnover battle. Not even against the Hawks, who subsist on generating opponent mistakes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Winning the turnover battle is critical to quickly dispatching the Hawks<\/p>\n New York\u2019s eleven turnovers in Game 1 are below its season average. It can\u2019t hope to hover around there every game. Atlanta is too disruptive. It ranked sixth in opponent turnover percentage<\/a> during the regular season, and was second overall after the All-Star break.<\/a><\/p>\n At the same time, just as the Hawks will force more turnovers, the Knicks have the ability to cut down on theirs. Four of their first-half turnovers in Game 1 came from Karl-Anthony. Three of them were the direct result of poor passes that had little to do with the defense. If he can tighten things up as New York funnels more of its top-of-the-key touches to him, the team\u2019s margin for error grows even further.<\/p>\n This is a huge deal against the Hawks. Committing fewer turnovers means giving them fewer opportunities to get out in transition, where they thrive. They still push the pace after makes<\/a> or dead balls, but the Knicks have more time to get their defense set in those scenarios.\u00a0<\/p>\n Limit Atlanta\u2019s fast-break possessions, and you\u2019re suddenly cooking with fish grease. Its half-court offense improved post-All-Star break, but is eminently solvable. Though Jalen Johnson is terrific, he doesn\u2019t have as many in-between counters as other stars, and can be, under the right circumstances, neutralized by someone such as<\/a> Josh Hart.<\/p>\n If Johnson doesn\u2019t have it going, the Hawks become uncomfortably reliant on Nickeil Alexander-Walker, CJ McCollum, and Dyson Daniels. That plays into the Knicks\u2019 hands, as we saw in Game 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n So yeah, there could be a lot of series left to play. Then again, if New York continues to win the turnover battle, maybe not.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\"){kind=icon}
Add us as a preferred source on Google