Allan Houston: Shot Whisperer

I don't want to overreact TOO much to Landry Fields's downtown dance party during the third quarter of yesterday's game. He hit three three-pointers over a very short stretch of time, and that alone doesn't compensate for 26 percent shooting from downtown on the season (on around two attempts per game). Still, his release and follow-through looked much better yesterday (we might have to take a video look at this later) than they had prior, and it sounds like Allan Houston had something to do with that. From Marc Berman of The Post:

Fields has been working with assistant general manager Allan Houston on his oft-wayward 3-pointer and mojo. Houston is probably the greatest pure shooter in Knicks’ history.

"It’s moreso being ready and confident,’’ Fields said. "There was ... mechanical stuff we worked on. But [he wants me] to remain aggressive. You can’t make shots if you don’t take them.’’

That's right, Gretzky! Whatever it was that Houston got in Landry's head/hands, it's great. The Knicks could really use some floor-spreading tendencies from Fields, and an uptick in marksmanship could probably get him back into the first unit and/or earn him some minutes in the fourth quarter (although it didn't do the latter yesterday). We'll see whether yesterday's third quarter was a complete fluke, or whether Landry's ready to hop on a shooting tear that more closely resembles last year's 39 percent clip than this year's ineptitude.

Meanwhile, thanks, Allan! New York is without a true "shooting coach" (at least as far as I know) since Phil Weber left the organization, so it seems that Houston's been visiting to impart morsels of moisture on New York's various impure shooters. Iman Shumpert was seen working with Houston before the Bucks game on March 26th. Since then, Shump's hit [mathmathmath] 21 of 54 three-pointers (39 percent) after connecting on 26 percent of his threes before that point. That's quite a bit better, and it's probably why you no longer find yourself cringing when Shumpert sets his feet to shoot. If we could get to that point with Landry as well, that'd be really, really, really great. Timely, too. Keep it up, Landry. You too, Allan.