David Fizdale was not kidding around about the Knicks playing position-less basketball.
Coming Friday night to the Garden: Frank Ntilikina versus a power forward.
“You might see that next game,” Fizdale said Thursday after practice, ahead of the preseason finale against the Nets. “In fact I guarantee it, how about that?”
Ntilikina won’t be starting at point guard Friday as he did Monday against the Wizards — instead, Ron Baker will be the fourth different Knick to start there in five preseason games — but Fizdale wants to see Ntilikina guard the four, potentially another way to increase his minutes.
Though the coach said he wouldn’t put the 6-foot-6 Frenchman “on a big old beast four,” he figured the Nets — with perhaps DeMarre Carroll or Rondae Hollis-Jefferson at the position — might offer a good opportunity to begin trying it.
“Brooklyn is fast-paced, they usually play four perimeters and a big guy. Why not? Let’s see it,” Fizdale said. “The fours that play in our league now … how teams are playing, they’re playing perimeter guys at that spot. Frank, that’s why I said he gives me so many options for having a ball-handler that can do multiple things and guard multiple people. So that’s where I think the flexibility comes in.”
Ntilikina is up for the challenge. Known more for his defensive prowess than his offensive abilities — with some help from his 7-foot wingspan — the No. 8 pick in 2017 grinned when asked how he felt about the assignment.
“You know what I think,” Ntilikina said. “Guarding anyone on the opposite end is good for me. It’s a challenge. I will do my best to deny them to score, to deny them to get what they want, to deny them to get comfortable. So yeah, if that’s the plan, let’s do it.
“It’s different, but at the end of the day, it’s basketball. Of course point guard doesn’t play like a four, but loving basketball and just being a student of the game, I want to be perfect at this. I want to be able to guard anyone.”
The 20-year-old is still a work in progress, but he gives the Knicks a defensive presence they often lack. He also may be better served to guard bigger opponents this season after putting on 10-15 pounds of muscle in the offseason. He is currently listed at 200 pounds.
Though the Knicks have a glut at point guard — and the starting battle at the position remains unsettled — Fizdale said he believes Ntilikina could fit the mold of Shaun Livingston, the Warriors veteran who can play the three or four with a point guard’s mentality.
“I’m hoping that that’s the kind of morph I can get out of him,” Fizdale said. “He can post smaller guys, hopefully he can have more range than Shaun even though Shaun can make a three, but Shaun knows where his bread is buttered — that pull-up jumper and that post-up over the top of small guys. He’s made a living in that. But he also guards everybody on the floor.”
Fizdale said they saw Ntilikina’s post-up game a few times in the summer league, when he would back down his opponent before getting off a fadeaway jump shot, but it is a process that will continue throughout the year.
“A lot of the guys I ended up working with as an assistant, they didn’t get post-up games until six or seven years into their career,” Fizdale said. “So we’re starting with him early on trying to develop that so that by the end of this year, the next year, he feels really comfortable down on the block.”
