Wayne “The Man With The Golden Arm” Ellington was mercifully granted a small amount of legitimate (that is to say, non-garbage) playing time last game, and he responded by hitting a bunch of threes in the third quarter of yet another Knicks victory. That performance entitled him to a veritable minutes bonanza in this one, as he played 27 minutes, the second most he has this season.
And once again, he responded to the playing time with raw, unadulterated production, this time scoring 17 points. And guess what, the Knicks won AGAIN. I’m sensing a trend here, and that trend is Ellington = wins.
He’s been bad this year, no doubt about that. But how is he ever supposed to be good again if he spends weeks without playing? I said the same things while Spoelstra was marginalizing him in Miami (the year directly after he set a Heat franchise record for threes), and I hate to have to say them again. People should realize at this point that he’s not going to be an instant shooter off the bench. He might have been once upon a time, maybe. But these days, he needs to get in a rhythm, and also have the assurance that a few misses won’t banish him to the bench for the rest of the game/road trip/month/season/career.
The Knicks need shooters. Ellington is a shooter. It literally does not get any simpler than this.