If Mikal Bridges’ stepback mid-range went in on Monday…
If that blocked Jalen Johnson dunk attempt bounced your way on Thursday…
The Knicks are a pair of bounces away from this series being all but over, up 3-0. Any neutral basketball fan would expect that, in a one-possession game in the final minute, the team with the 2024-25 Clutch Player of the Year, the best fourth quarter net rating in NBA history, and elite clutch stats would overwhelm an inexperienced Hawks team, but that’s not what happened.
Instead, the Knicks have been flagrantly out-executed in the clutch in back-to-back games and are suddenly undergoing a nightmare of epic proportions. A loss on Saturday in Atlanta would effectively mark the end of the most disappointing season in franchise history, even if they are technically promised a Game 5 at MSG. Three consecutive victories after what we’ve seen in this series does not feel like a realistic outcome.
There are multiple ways you can look at a series like this to this point.
On one hand, it’s an abysmal disaster the Knicks are at this point and are very, very close to a breaking point that will formally end this core and any realistic chance of seeing a ticker-tape parade down the Canyon of Heroes in the Jalen Brunson era.
On the other hand, it can be viewed as a slightly more formidable version of last year’s Detroit series. If you don’t recall, the Knicks were in the role the Hawks were yesterday in Game 3 in Detroit, barely holding onto a double-digit lead to take a 2-1 lead. Both games in Detroit were a nightmare to watch, and while the Knicks prevailed in both, they had to fight tooth and nail to get through that series with a Pistons team that ultimately gave them the kick in the ass they needed to play their best basketball against Boston.
Would the Knicks have survived the Pistons if they lost one of those games in Detroit? I’d think so, but it would’ve been utter chaos all around. The same existential questions we’re asking now would’ve been there if things had gone slightly differently in Game 3 or 4 in Detroit. Nobody likes a team that has clearly made it NBA Finals or bust struggling in the first round.
But that’s besides the point right now. What’s been going right, and what’s been going wrong?
What’s going right is that the Knicks have completely contained Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Jalen Johnson, while their defensive strategy has effectively made Dyson Daniels unplayable in certain situations. While he managed to make more threes in Game 3 than Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson combined (rough way to lose a game, huh?), his horrifically bad offensive game saw him be pulled off the court and gave Brunson an easier matchup late in the game, but he didn’t capitalize on it… at all.
While CJ McCollum’s explosion has been the absolute worst-case scenario in his series, it’s come at the expense of Alexander-Walker playing essentially six total good minutes in this series (and part of that was the fake comeback in Game 1). For all the ugly, ugly basketball he’s played, Bridges has had him in a straightjacket so far.
The pace has also gotten slower late in games, which should generally favor the Knicks. The second quarter onslaught that the Hawks used to build a near-insurmountable 18-point lead was powered by some of the fastest pace the Knicks had played all season, which predictably didn’t go their way. The last two playoff runs have ended because the Knicks were unable to use their veteran experience to control the flow of a playoff game, playing to the pace of a younger, faster, and more athletic team in an environment meant for a slow pace.
There was also a more concerted effort to hide Brunson after he was grilled in Game 2. There would be possessions where he started on McCollum instead of Alexander-Walker to freeze a Hawks offense that was focused on guard pick-and-rolls to get the switch. There were more shows instead of switches when Brunson inevitably started guarding other players. They rolled the dice with the defensively-challenged small guard on Johnson and Daniels and benefited from it.
They also may have found a lineup that works. Deuce McBride, whose minutes distribution in the first two games was extremely odd, got extended run replacing a struggling Bridges in the starting lineup and that lineup was absolutely sensational, barely coming up short at the end.
McBride strives when he can get open looks in transition and off guys like Brunson and Towns’ gravity. When they’re not on the court, he’s extremely limited in what he can provide offensively. There were still some possessions where he’s on-ball too much, but progress was made in that regard.
Now… for where things are going very wrong. Mitchell Robinson has not made an impact at all in the last two games and is a startlingly bad minus-28 in that span. The limited double big minutes have struggled. There are still times where both Brunson and Towns are missing, even if the last two stints haven’t been as bad as the first few.
The biggest problem, to me, is the late-game execution that’s now costing them back-to-back games. Specifically, Jalen Brunson.
Brunson arguably played his most complete game in Game 3 after playing flat-out bad for seven consecutive quarters after his electric first quarter last Saturday. He was able to get away from Daniels and helped charge the comeback by hunting mismatches and being decisive. He’d size up his matchup and go in with a clear plan, regardless of how it was defended.
The last two possessions of Game 3? It was completely the opposite.
After an offensive rebound gave the Knicks another chance to go up 3 or 4 points in the final minute, Brunson isolates and looks like he’s going to fire a patented stepback 3 against Onyeka Okongwu, but he hesitates and eventually gets caught in a position where he has to throw up a bad shot.
On the final possession, he gets the whole right side of the court cleared out and a mismatch on Okongwu. First, watch the play below:
At this very point below, Brunson has two options. He can either create separation on Okongwu by stepping back and taking a baseline jumper, or continue to drive to the hole and either go off glass against a rotating Johnson, or dump off to a cutting Anunoby down low.
He chooses option one in this split-second decision, but hesitates. Just like the prior possession, the best player on the team gets enough space for a jumper. Make or miss, that’s the shot. Unfortunately, he decided to not pull the trigger and was suddenly trapped with no teammates in the area because the intended play was meant for Brunson to shoot the ball.
It’s a lot easier to judge this from afar than to be in his shoes, but when the play is run for you, that cannot happen. Make or miss, you’re our guy, and we put the ball in your hands. After he picked up the dribble, the game was over, barring some miracle cut and pass that never came.
To win this series, they’ll have to cut down on these mistakes. If this keeps happening, the season ends early next week.
