Steve Novak is going to keep shooting, you can count on that.
Despite shooting poorly in the Knicks’ 88-76 win over the Pacers yesterday, the Garden’s resident sharpshooter said he is not going to make excuses or be discouraged just because of an off game.
“I know they’re not going to fall every night,” Novak said. “I missed good looks. I don’t want to make any excuses. I was open, they didn’t fall.”
Novak, in his second year with the Knicks, shot just 3-of-10 overall in yesterday’s game against Indiana, including just 38 percent from three-point range. Novak led the NBA in 3-point shooting a year ago, hitting 47 percent of his shots from beyond the arc, so his track record speaks for itself.
“I always have confidence that the next one is going to go in,” Novak said. “My teammates continue to go to me and give me confidence. I’m not going to not shoot a shot because I’m not shooting it well. I wouldn’t keep shooting if I wasn’t working on it and knew that was my role and what I needed to do.”
Novak has only made five of his 16 treys over the Knicks’ past three games. The Knicks as a whole had trouble shooting the three ball yesterday, connecting on just 28 percent of their attempts.
Head coach Mike Woodson isn’t exactly discouraging his players from taking open looks when they get them, and for as much talk that has been made about his preaching of defense, he wants the Knicks to establish an offensive identity as well.
“We are still in learning mode and can improve across the board on both sides of the ball,” Woodson said. “We preached at the start of camp, if you want to be an offensive team, you have to get shots off.”
The Knicks have relied heavily on the trey through their first eight games, ranking first in the league in three-pointers made (10.9) and second in attempts (26.4) and percentage (.411) heading into Sunday.
“We had a tough shooting night tonight team-wise,” Raymond Felton said. “But you can’t have a tough shooting night and a tough turnover night, that’s probably going to lead to a loss.”
In addition to taking care of the ball, the Knicks were able to get the ball into the post to counteract Indiana’s defensive strategy to take away the three.
“[The three-point shot] is their best weapon,” Pacers head coach Frank Vogel said. “Defensively, we knew that we could make plays with Roy Hibbert at the rim, and try and stay home with shooters as much as possible. We did a good job defensively guarding the three-point line.”
And even though it wasn’t falling for the Knicks, Indiana still had to respect Novak’s ability to shoot the ball, which helped open up the middle for post scoring.
“I have to continue to be a threat,” Novak said. “When it’s not [falling] you have to find a way to score and when you have an inside presence like we do, it sure helps.”