NEW YORK — There’s a rhythm in Immanuel Quickley’s step. His grooving gait is easy to spot even as Quickley’s big, brown eyes hide under the hood of his sweatsuit for pregame warmups. He’s just a dancer. He cranks his shoulders when he finishes in the paint with the whistle. He pumps his fists, flashing three fingers before his face, whenever a big triple rinses through the net. And then he’s prone to prancing back on defense, smiling as if it’s all been choreographed for the Madison Square Garden crowd.
None of this is premeditated, but the Knicks’ string bean guard prepares deeply for each performance. Quickley has developed a compulsive film study habit during his third professional season, memorizing opponents’ play calls and tendencies to channel all that verve and guard better than he’s ever guarded before.
“He can think and he reacts and he can anticipate,” New York head coach Tom Thibodeau said. “He’s undersized, but he’s a lot stronger than you’d think.”
The Knicks’ video staff wiredrops various clips following each game onto the Hudl app, loading video so Thibodeau’s full roster can stream it on their phones. It’s a common practice across the league, just as common as players ignoring the coded film until the playoffs. Quickley, though, requests a special cut. “The usual formula,” he calls it, getting his minutes from that night’s contest downloaded onto an iPad, plus the full footage of New York’s next opponent’s previous game, and then the Knicks’ own last battle against that upcoming team. The staff knows he’s digesting it on the plane, while getting his hair braided or while getting his hair cut. He’s always looking for clues. “What the other team likes to do, sets, out of bounds, it’s just little nuggets throughout the game that you need to take note of,” Quickley told Yahoo Sports. He returns the tablet to the team for its next round of video with the battery percentage nearly drained.
He has consulted with Jrue Holiday, seeking pointers from Milwaukee’s bulldog who can seemingly clamp any playmaker. Knowing Holiday worked with Knicks assistant Darren Erman during shared days in New Orleans, Quickley snagged the All-Star point guard’s number after a Bucks game and texted him for a tutorial. There was no secret sauce. No Holy Grail. “Basically, he just said it’s all effort. Most people in the league don’t try,” Quickley deadpanned. And if you package that intensity…