Knicks getting first taste of David Fizdale’s innovative offense
LAS VEGAS – While Mike D’Antoni gets all the credit for being a pioneer of the modern offensive trend of pace-and-space, position-less basketball, new Knicks coach David Fizdale likes to think he had a share in moving it toward the mainstream.
As a Heat assistant coach under Erik Spoelstra, Fizdale lobbied to change up things after the Miami Dream Team was formed with LeBron James-Dwyane Wade-Chris Bosh in 2010.
Fizdale thought they could add wrinkles to the standard Spoelstra/Pat Riley moderately paced offense.
“It was always something that I used to beat over Spo’s head,” Fizdale said after the Knicks’ first summer-league practice Tuesday. “But change is always difficult when you’ve done things a certain way for so long. We really had a good system in Miami that we had built, but all of a sudden we got all of these guys who were so skilled and multifaceted. That’s when I finally got through to him, ‘Come on man, let’s just try it.”’
The Heat advanced to four straight Finals and two titles with Fizdale’s wrinkles. That’s one reason he became such a hot commodity and Memphis hired him as head coach in 2016-17, though a case could be made the Grizzlies’ traditional big-man heavy, low-post accented roster wasn’t tailor-made for him.
Finally, Spoelstra recognized the allure of not being so reliant on set positions.
“(Spoelstra) broke on me and he opened up the offense where our fives (centers) would bring it up,” Fizdale said.
“Chris Bosh would take it off the glass and push it. Our best post-up players was our two wings (Wade and James), so we started figuring out, wait a minute, we can’t just call these guys a wing, a big — whatever the situation calls for, if you can do it, that’s what you become.
“So if you rebound it, you’re the point guard. If you’re the first guy down, you’re the big man. We we started screwing it up in Miami and getting it right and screwing it up and tinkering with it to a point where we felt like we built something pretty good from a position-less standpoint.”
And now he’s trying to lay this philosophy on the new young Knicks. Selecting 6-foot-9 Kevin Knox, a new-age prototype combo forward, was partly on Fizdale’s urging. Adding in free agency another combo forward in Mario Hezonja, Fizdale indicated, also fit that mold, even though Knicks GM Scott Perry is very aware of the underachieving Hezonja’s flaws from their Orlando days.
Meanwhile, had traditional center Enes Kanter opted out, the Knicks had no interest in trying to re-sign him, but he opted back in. Fizdale, instead, is trying to change Kanter’s game to become a competent 3-point shooter.
To make Fizdale’s system work best, the coach said, you need the right type of players.
“It’s who you put on your roster, obviously,” Fizdale said. “There’s levels to position-less, and it’s how many guys on the floor can play that way. But if you got a big and it’s not someone you want bringing it up, then he doesn’t bring it up. He outlets it to the one. You have to have some flexibility in it.
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“But how many guys can we accumulate and put on the floor that I don’t have to say: “You’re a point guard, you’re a two-guard, you’re a three, you’re a four and you can just go play. It really gives your team a very dynamic offense and also defense.”
As such, expect the experiment of Frank Ntilikina to play both guard positions this season, perhaps not as much in summer-league, though.
On the first session, Fizdale went though the ins and outs of the offense with a “detailed teaching session, saving the hard scrimmaging for the night session Tuesday. On July 4, Fizdale planned just one practice.
“Just trying to institute the system — get in the basics of the offense and the defense so everybody is comfortable with what we’re doing,” Fizdale said.
“Offensively, it’s a free-flowing, all-inclusive offense, an offense where everyone feels involved. Spacing is critical to it. Pace is critical to it. Ball movement is critical to it. Defensively, I like to get up and pressure. Obviously switching is a big part of that. But also I’d like for our bigs to do multiple things.”