How will Jeff Hornacek’s offense look in New York?

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Jeff Hornacek is going to change the New York Knicks’ offense. That much we know.

What’s unclear is how, specifically, Hornacek plans to tweak things.

Carmelo Anthony said in recent interviews that he expects to play quicker under Hornacek, whose deal with the Knicks is expected to be completed in the coming days.

“One thing I do know is he wants to play as a fast-paced team, up tempo,” Anthony said in a Q&A with the NBPA published Tuesday. “You just look at the teams that he’s coached in Phoenix, and how quickly they wanted to get up the court and play. We still have time to figure everything out as far as sitting down and seeing what he wants and seeing what we want as a team. And we’ll figure that part out.”

Figuring that part out will be one of the more interesting story lines of Hornacek’s first season in New York.

While we wait to hear from Hornacek and Jackson (no, the news conference hasn’t been scheduled yet), it’s perhaps instructive to take a look at a few things Hornacek said about his coaching style before he took the Phoenix Suns job in 2013.

ESPN’s Zach Lowe sat down with Hornacek in the summer of 2013 to talk about offense, defense and a host of other subjects. The Q&A is fantastic. You can read it here in full.

Below, we’ll take a look at a few of Hornacek’s thoughts how they may apply to the Knicks.

Q: What’s that offense going to look like after a year of struggling to find an identity without (former Suns star Steve) Nash?

A: “I compare a lot of things to how it was when I actually played in Phoenix, back in the day, with Kevin Johnson. We got into the offense really quickly. If you can get it in the post, or penetrate and kick out, and get that early shot in the first seven seconds, or maybe eight seconds of the shot clock … Statistics say in the first eight seconds, you shoot a much higher percentage.”

How might this impact the Knicks?

Life will be different if Hornacek brings this philosophy to New York. The Knicks ranked 25th in shot attempts per game in the first 4-6 seconds of the shot clock and 24th in shot attempts in the first 6-9 seconds of the shot clock.

Hornacek’s Suns were top 5 in both categories.

Shooting early in the clock would increase the Knicks’ overall pace, which is what Anthony referenced above.

This seems inevitable. The Knicks ranked in the bottom third of the NBA in pace the past two seasons. Hornacek’s Suns ranked in the top 10 in pace in each of his three seasons as …

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