Burks is playing worse defense than he did last year.
One play circa 8' mark of 3Q, Burks rotates inside to a rolling Drummond. Problem is Randle was there already. Drummond makes the easy read for a Danny Green corner 3, which cut the Knick lead to 8. This got Green going, and he hit another 3 the next trip down. Soon enough PHI was down by only 2.
On that play, Knix already had a high double team on the left side, so Burks collapsing in resulted in simultaneous double teams leaving two spot up shooters wide open. A horrible misconfiguration we also saw last game. Not sure what it is with Burks, but his default setting is to head into the paint, when he should be thinking closing out and staying attached to shooters.
Fournier has been somewhat frustrating lately. Sometimes he looks smooth and lights out. Then other times he makes dumb fouls, stumbles around, shoots airballs. He absolutely adds a shot creation element Knix didn't have, able to both shoot and drive. But these stretches where he disappears or plays badly are becoming more pronounced. And this has been a problem throughout his career. In ORL I often attributed it to trying to do too much. But I'm inclined to blame mental focus.
Otherwise, Fournier doesn't seem integrated into the Knick offense. Seems to be mainly doing his own thing. Such a wildcard isn't necessarily a bad thing, though more commonly found on 2nd units. Also it's still early going. Fournier slumping some in NOV. (25% on 3's). And while better than Burks, I'd also rate Fournier's D as below average.
Poll
