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Despite not playing since late January, the Knicks held out hope that Julius Randle could successfully rehabilitate his injured right shoulder and return for a playoff run. Instead, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported Thursday that New York will be without Randle the rest of the season as he undergoes surgery to return for the start of the 2024-25 campaign.
The Knicks still have an All-Star in breakout guard Jalen Brunson but haven’t been the same team since losing both Randle and newcomer OG Anunoby, who suffered an elbow injury the same day as Randle. Anunoby has played just three games since undergoing surgery Feb. 8.
With New York in the middle of a crowded battle for playoff seeding — the Knicks sit in fifth place, a half-game behind the Orlando Magic for home court in the first round — Randle’s surgery could have important implications for not only his team’s own postseason run but also the chances of those nearby in the standings. Let’s take a look at where New York might finish and the team’s playoff potential without Randle.
Brian Windhorst explains why the Knicks’ playoff hopes aren’t completely lost even after losing Julius Randle for the season.
Schedule favors Knicks
New York is last in the standings among three East teams with 31 losses. The Cleveland Cavaliers (46-31) sit in third with the Magic (45-31) in fourth a half-game ahead of the 44-31 Knicks. The upside is New York has the easiest remaining schedule on paper of the three.
ESPN’s Basketball Power Index rates the Knicks’ final seven games, starting Thursday night at home against the Sacramento Kings, as the league’s seventh-easiest remaining slate. After facing Sacramento, New York plays just two teams with above-.500 records the rest of the way, visiting the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics. Three of Cleveland’s final five games are against above-.500 teams, while Orlando’s last four opponents are .500 or better.
At the same time, schedule strength can be fluid down the stretch. If the Bucks can sew up the second seed in the East heading into the final three games of the regular season, the Magic’s home-and-home matchups against Milwaukee might not be as tough as they seem on paper.
On top of the teams ahead of them in the standings, the Knicks also need to worry about being caught from behind. They’re two games up on both the Indiana Pacers and Miami Heat, who respectively sit sixth and seventh in the East.
Simulations based on BPI show the single most likely outcome is the Knicks will remain where they currently are in fifth. But that happens in only 35% of simulations, leaving plenty to be determined over the final 10 days of the season.
Playoff path might vary
Without question, the best outcome for New York is passing Cleveland and Orlando to finish third, which would give the Knicks home-court advantage in the opening round and keep them on the other side of the bracket from the top-seeded Celtics. Avoiding Boston until a possible conference finals matchup gives New York the best chance of winning two playoff series for the first time since 2000.
Failing that, the Knicks could be incentivized to manipulate matchups as long as they don’t risk dropping all the way to seventh and into the play-in tournament. The possibility of avoiding the Celtics in the second round isn’t worth giving up home-court advantage in Round 1, but New York might be better off finishing sixth than fifth.
On paper, the Magic look like the most favorable first-round opponent. Not only does Orlando have the worst scoring differential (plus-2.3 points per game) of the three teams vying for third, but the Magic are slightly behind the Pacers (plus-2.4) as well. And Orlando doesn’t have the playoff experience of the Miami Heat, who have been in two of the past four NBA Finals. In fact, the Magic’s 91 games of playoff experience on their current roster are the fewest of any postseason-bound team.
Just four Orlando players — Markelle Fultz, Gary Harris, Joe Ingles and Jonathan Isaac — have previously seen playoff action. New York went 1-3 against the Magic in the season series, however — its worst record against any likely playoff opponent.
New York won the head-to-head series with both the Cavaliers and Heat, albeit mostly with Randle in the lineup. The Knicks won their only game against Cleveland since Randle’s injury — with All-Star Donovan Mitchell also sidelined — but lost Tuesday in Miami in their first meeting without Randle.
A series against the Cavaliers would be a rematch of last year’s first-round meeting, which New York won 4-1 despite Randle averaging just 14.4 points on 34% shooting in the series while playing through an ankle injury.
Stephen A. Smith is stunned by the news that Knicks forward Julius Randle will undergo season-ending shoulder surgery.
How dangerous are the Knicks without Randle?
Over the course of the season, Boston is the only East team with a better point differential than the Knicks’ plus-4.5 mark. Yet much of that success was compiled during a 12-2 stretch in January between when New York added Anunoby and when he and Randle went down with injuries.
Since the All-Star break, the Knicks have gone 11-9 with a plus-4.8 net rating that ranks behind the Magic (plus-6.6), Heat (plus-5.2) and Pacers (plus-5.1), according to NBA Advanced Stats. Of the most likely first-round opponents for New York, only Cleveland — also hampered by injuries to stars — has a weaker net rating since the break (minus-3.9).
Anunoby’s return would certainly bolster the Knicks’ chances of a deep playoff run by giving them a strong two-way contributor in the frontcourt. In Randle’s absence, Anunoby is the New York player most capable of both defending opposing power forwards and being an offensive threat. Recently, Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau has used 6-foot-5 Josh Hart as a 4 in a tiny starting lineup with three perimeter players 6-4 or under: Brunson, Donte DiVincenzo and Miles McBride.
Despite the lack of size, New York still ranks fourth in defensive rating since the All-Star break. It’s the Knicks’ offense, ranked 15th, that predictably has missed Randle’s scoring punch. The biggest concern in a playoff series is how opponents might be able to load up defensively against Brunson, New York’s only consistent shot creator in the starting five.
Since Randle’s injury, Brunson sports the NBA’s highest usage rate at 35%. Remarkably, Brunson’s efficiency has barely wobbled under the load, the reason he was named Eastern Conference Player of the Month for March. In a playoff setting, however, Brunson can expect to face regular traps designed to take the ball out of his hands. As long as the Knicks avoid the Celtics, any playoff series remains winnable despite Randle’s absence. The downside of playing without the All-Star forward is that any series is losable for New York as well.
