Game two’s loss on Monday night was a messy amalgamation of inexplicable coaching decisions, selfish play, bad and bad shot-making from both the three-point line and the free-throw line, and it led to one of the most frustrating losses of the season. So what are the biggest takeaways from a loss that I’m sure everybody will want to forget about? Hint, you’re going to see that a lot of guys just need to be better.
Jalen Brunson has to be better
Jalen Brunson has meant more to this franchise than almost anyone who has ever been a Knick.
He is the best player on the team, the steady captain of a team, and an organization that has longed for said steadiness. And without him, New York does not experience its first taste of sustained success in two decades. That being said, Brunson, like any other player to ever don a jersey, has his flaws. Among those flaws is his tendency to take matchups personally.
It can, at times, work in his and the Knicks’ favor. But when it doesn’t, it leads to a self-serving, heliocentric, stagnant offense, leaving teammates and fans watching and wondering what’s going on. Last night, and you can argue the last 7 quarters, have been a prime example of that. For a very large portion of this series, Brunson’s offensive process has been subpar, bordering on awful. There’s been a lot of isolation, forced shots, and open-court turnovers, and many of them have come at critical junctures of the game.
When his second option was a hobbled Julius Randle or Donte DiVincenzo, it was understandable for Brunson to play hero ball. But with an All-NBA player in Karl-Anthony Towns right beside him, it’s inexplicable. Towns has been feasting on the Hawks’ defense for much of the series, but only when he is given the ability to do so. Despite the big man toeing the line between patience and decisiveness incredibly well over the first two games, Brunson insisted on doing it by himself.
What Brunson has yet to understand is that not only does playing with Towns work very well, it also makes everyone’s life, including his very own, much easier. When Brunson either involves Towns in a pick-and-roll or plays off of Towns being the offensive hub, he can then conserve energy, while also often getting much better looks.
I do expect Brunson to be better moving forward. During his almost two full seasons playing with Towns, he’s often backed up games like last night’s with very good playmaking games. But that doesn’t make up for last night’s loss, and it doesn’t make it any less frustrating. The two have been playing way too long for Brunson to still have games like this. And if he and the Knicks want to get as far as they’d like, Brunson will want to think real hard about whether personal matchups or winning matters more.
Deuce McBride and/or Landry Shamet have to be better
I spoke very openly after game one about how much better the Knicks’ bench was compared to the Hawks’. Last night, the results were a bit different. New York’s bench has gotten a lot of flak in the last 12 hours, but I think it’s overstated a bit. Mitchell Robinson and Jordan Clarkson were still both effective and provided some great minutes. As did Jose Alvarado, who, despite only logging nine minutes, was tied for the second-highest plus-minus in the game.
What hasn’t been overstated is the ineffectiveness of Deuce McBride and Landry Shamet, two players who have been pivotal to the Knicks’ regular-season success, in game two. McBride made two key threes in Saturday night’s win, but went 0-3 from the field, just 0-1 from three, had two turnovers, and overall looked outmatched when met with perimeter pressure. Shamet attempted just one shot in 10 minutes, and missed it, making him just 1-7 from the field, and 1-6 from three this series.
Meanwhile, the Hawks’ bench was a big reason they won. Corey Kispert, thanks in large part to the Knicks ’ bench ineptitude, was a +10 in nine minutes, while Tony Bradley repeated some of his successes as a Pacer, giving them a very solid 12 minutes. And Jonathan Kuminga scored 19 crucial points off the bench as well.
With Robinson and Clarkson playing the way they have been, the Knicks don’t need a lot from McBride and Shamet. But with the Hawks now having homecourt advantage and the momentum, they can ill afford both of these players being as quiet as they have been.
Mike Brown has to be better
While both players can and should be playing better, it is on the coach to put their best players in the best position to succeed, something Mike Brown failed to do last night. Brown, rightfully so, has caught a lot of flak for his lineup decisions last night. And while many have pointed out that the starters came back in with a nine-point lead, it’s still hard to justify Brown’s choices.
It is true that the starters had a chance to close out the game. It is true that Brunson can, should, and needs to be better. It is true that OG Anunoby cannot miss two free throws like he did last night. And it is true that if Mikal Bridges makes the final shot, the Knicks still escape with a victory.
But even the greatest players of all-time have missed shots and made bad decisions. One thing you can control is rotations and lineup choices. If Brown doesn’t go to a Brunson, and Towns-less lineup in the second and fourth quarters, chances are, the starters have more than a nine-point cushion. Instead of using lineups that he has gone to for the vast majority of the season, he went with lineups that either had very little success or no experience playing together, and that is just flat out not okay.
And it’s not just about having one of your two best players on the court at all times. It’s the fact that they make the jobs of the bench players easier. And, quite frankly, those bench players also make the stars’ jobs easier. For as long as McBride has been a rotational player, he has played extremely well with Brunson, and or Towns. It’s because McBride amplifies both of them with his shooting and perimeter defense, while they both make McBride’s job easier. The same, albeit to a lesser extent, can be said about Shamet.
Again, yes, those two can play better. But instead of putting his bench players in a position to succeed, he made their jobs more difficult, and that, regardless of how well the starters closed out the game, is a problem Brown needs to address going forward.
Offense against the bigs on Hart has to be better
The more things change, the more they stay the same. As I touched on after game one, the Hawks went back to the Knicks’ biggest kryptonite-putting a big on Josh Hart-and it worked to perfection. As it so often has, the Knicks’ offense, which had already gotten stagnant, ran into even more problems when the Hawks went to this defensive alignment. And you can bet the Hawks are only going to rely on it more and more as the series goes on.
While the Knicks should still have the upper hand and should still out-talent the Hawks, this should, and likely will, be a key thing to keep an eye on the rest of the playoffs.
