Is RJ playing hurt? I'm looking at his game logs now.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/barrerj01/gamelog/2022October 20th to October 26th (4 games)
12.0 ppg, 39.1% fg's (11.5 fga/g), 26.1% 3pt fg's (5.8 3pa/g), 60.0% ft's (2.5 fta/g)
October 28th to November 5th (5 games)
25.0 ppg, 51.7% fg's (17.4 fga/g), 50.0% 3pt fg's (6.4 3pa/g), 79.2% ft's (4.8 fta/g)
November 7th - November 21st (8 games)
10.1 ppg, 28.0% fg's (13.4 fga/g), 17.5% 3pt fg's (5.0 3pa/g), 70.0% ft's (2.5 fta/g)So what exactly happened to RJ between November 5th and November 7th? When I look at the game logs, the drop off is clear.
Did he hurt his shooting hand? Is he not getting much lift from his legs? I think something physically happened to him. It cannot just be mental or the opposing scouting reports figuring him out. I don't think it's the way our offense is running either.
Also, from October 20th to November 5th (9 games), RJ was getting
35.4 minutes per game. From Novmber 7th to November 21st (8 games), RJ has been getting
29.9 minutes per game.
So the Knicks have cut his playing time down by 5 and a half minutes during the latest stretch of games. I'm guessing he is still healthy enough to play defense in Thibs' eyes, which is why he still gets a lot of minutes, but he is not healthy enough to produce on the offensive end.
It has been an entirety of TWO WEEKS that RJ's shooting has been atrocious and god awful. He has not shot above 38% in a single game since November 5th. There has to be something physically wrong with him, there just has to be.