Teams having identities in sports is what helps to establish parity. And parity is what defines championships, eras, and how teams are remembered.

But following their first Eastern Conference Finals appearance in 25 years, the New York Knicks wagered their identity when they fired head coach Tom Thibodeau.

Mike Brown’s hire was initially met with skepticism, mainly by those who pushed his arrival through the rudimentary lens of, “Is he a better coach than the last one?”

And while I can’t think of any New York hire that wouldn’t have been dissected, it’s starting to look silly in hindsight. Miles McBride’s evolution is evidence plentiful.

After his latest fireworks display against the Utah Jazz—22 points on 7-of-10 shooting from downtown—McBride is shooting 44% from three-point land. That’s not over his last five games, that’s not on the road, that’s on the season. 

McBride, in another career leap, has become the team’s most reliable shooter not named Jalen Brunson.

Credit to Brown, who, in his first year as head coach of the Knicks, has revolutionized an offense previously orbital around one player. Everyone gets touches. Everyone gets looks.

After a brutal thrashing of the Jazz, McBride’s up to 124 shot attempts from deep over 19 games. That’s good for a 508 pace–a number only 23 players hit last season. 

As of Dec. 5, the fifth-year guard ranks eighth in the NBA in three-point percentage; he’s posting a career-high true shooting percentage at 60.6%, and his .685 three-point rate is also a career-best.

And it’s not for nothing. With McBride on the court, New York is outscoring opponents by 15.6 points per 100 possessions, and scoring 128.9 points per, good for the 984th percentile league-wide.

Related: the Knicks have scored 130 or more points in 12 games this season. The franchise record for any season is 13. 

Last season, New York connected on 12.6 of their 34.1 three-point attempts nightly. They finished the season ranked 24th and 27th, respectively, in the league.

(It’s worth noting that the eventual champion, Oklahoma City Thunder, finished top-10 in both categories. If you’re wondering what championship basketball looks like in today’s era.)

Fast forward to this season, and the Knicks are generating 41 attempts from deep and converting on 15.4 of them a night. Those numbers rank sixth and fourth in the NBA, respectively.

But more importantly,17.8 of those nightly takes are “open,” defined by the league as shots with the closest defender no further than six feet away.

This offensive renaissance is Brown’s doing. Because not only has he challenged Brunson and others to travel more off the ball, but also to ignore the staggering quantity and the misses that came with it, in search of quality shots.

Don’t look at the light. It’s green. Go!

Early on, you could see the growing pains of the Knicks’ newfound offensive focus; the team shot 34.4% from three in October, 38.2% in November, and has improved to start December, converting 39.6% of their looks. They keep chipping away.

But no one is more of a benefactor than McBride, who’s hit 13 of his last 27. And he’s showing no signs of stopping, in an environment and offense designed to maximize shooting from every member on the totem pole.

One last tidbit on Brown’s use of Deuce, because it can’t go overlooked.

Last season, Brunson and McBride shared the floor for 1,372 possessions, per Cleaning the Glass. The results spoke for themselves, with New York outscoring opponents by 8.9 points per 100 possessions.

This season, the guard duo has already shared the floor for 602 possessions, more than a third of last year’s sample, in just 20 games played.

It has resulted in some insanely good play from the Knicks, who are +22.1 per 100 possessions while scoring an otherworldly 134.7 points per.

Although McBride went down with an ankle injury in Sunday’s win over the Orlando Magic, with an MRI pending to determine the severity, the moral of this story still holds firm: Play your best players together, more than anything else, and good things happen.

Taking and making threes can easily be considered a player stat. Guys get hot, guys go cold, some nights belong to them, and some belong to others.

But this was Brown’s vision, and McBride is his testimony.