Anybody could have had Jalen Brunson in the 2018 NBA Draft. Anybody. The Villanova guard was the 33rd overall choice in that selection process, and has since parlayed his old-man game into four 20 point-per-game seasons and three All-Star appearances.
That same June night, the Sixers did have Mikal Bridges, albeit briefly. (Perhaps you’ve heard.) Landry Shamet, too.
They’re all Knicks now, Brunson via Dallas, Bridges (Brunson’s former teammate on the Main Line) via Phoenix and Brooklyn and Shamet via seemingly
half the teams in the league. And on Friday night their play proved pivotal in the Knicks’ 108-94 victory over the Sixers in Game 3 of an Eastern Conference semifinal series.
That the Sixers are down 3-0 is due not only to Joel Embiid’s brittle body, Paul George’s aging body and Tyrese Maxey’s compromised body, but because the team doesn’t have nearly enough bodies.
Even without forward OG Anunoby (hamstring), and even with foul-plagued Karl-Anthony Towns managing eight points, the Knicks had ample reinforcements. Brunson scored 33. Bridges, amid a playoff heater, had 23, and Shamet surprised with 15 off the bench.
This is a guy who had managed 14 points in New York’s first eight playoff games. A guy who hadn’t cracked double figures since putting up 13 against Memphis in a regular-season game on April 1, and one who had played sparingly during a four-game stretch of the Knicks’ first-round series against Atlanta.
But on Friday he shot 5-for-6 from the floor and was a team-best plus-20 in 26:20.
“You just stay ready,” he said. “When your number’s called, you stay ready. … It felt good. It felt good to be out there with my teammates. Felt good to get a win.”
Bridges called the 29-year-old guard “a true professional.” Coach Mike Brown called him a lifesaver.
“We needed a spark,” he said, “and Landry gave it to us.”
The Knicks’ reserves outscored the Sixers subs 23-0 through the first three quarters, 29-11 overall. (Kudos to Quentin Grimes, minus-17 in 22:28, for a pair of fourth-quarter three-pointers.)
We need not relitigate the Jared McCain trade here, but we all see what he’s doing with Oklahoma City. (The counterpoint is that the Thunder is better able to cover up his defensive deficiencies, which the Knicks would certainly have attempted to exploit in this series, were he still on the roster. Still, the dude can shoot.)
The greater point is that the Sixers’ bench has been hideous all year, whether McCain has been on it or not. And whether because of tired legs or whatever, the team as a whole has run out of gas late in the last two games of this series. They were outscored 19-12 in that period in Game 2, 22–18 Friday.
Also noteworthy – the 36-year-old George was 6-for-9 while scoring 15 points in the first quarter, scoreless on 0-for-9 shooting thereafter. Embiid gave it his best shot, but he’s clearly not even close to being right; he finished with 18 points and six rebounds.
And Maxey, who for weeks has been playing with a pinky injury, managed just 12 shots against a Bridges-led defense. Made eight, mind you, but it was clear the Knicks weren’t gonna let him wreck the game. And he didn’t, finishing with just 17 points.
One other thing: The Sixers, as has been their wont, were outrebounded 49-33, and outscored on second-chance points, 20-11.
Does Game 4 even need to be played on Sunday afternoon? Can’t the Sixers just fax a concession to league headquarters? Can’t the airtime be filled by Ben Simmons summer workout videos or some such thing?
Friday’s game began on a promising note for Philadelphia. Spurred by the crowd and desperate to climb out of an 2-0 series hole, the Sixers raced to a 20-8 lead highlighted by a pair of VJ Edgecombe dunks, off feeds from Maxey. But the Knicks kept coming, due in no small part to two guys with Sixers ties.
Bridges, taken 10th by Philadelphia in that 2018 draft and immediately flipped to Phoenix for another draftee, Zhaire Smith, and a 2021 No. 1, shot 8-for-14 from the floor. After an uneven regular season he is knocking down 64.9 percent of his attempts in the series, 69.4 percent over his last four games, while defending with his usual verve.
Shamet, selected 26th in 2018, spent 54 games with the Sixers before he and the first-rounder in the Bridges trade were sent to the Clippers for Tobias Harris. Shamet has since played for Brooklyn, Phoenix and Washington as well. And when Brunson rested late in Friday’s first quarter, it was Shamet who scored five points, helping the Knicks cut the gap to four by period’s end.
They went ahead for good with 8:20 left in the first half, at 38-35, and fended Philadelphia off the rest of the night. Brunson did his thing at the offensive end, Bridges on D. And everybody else seemed to help out.
When asked afterward about Bridges’ work against Maxey, Brown talked about the multiple efforts required to contain such a dynamic player.
“And Mikal is busting his behind, trying to do that, trying to make it tough on him while giving it to us offensively,” the coach said. “So again, I applaud Mikal. I also applaud our defense behind Mikal.”
Bridges, who made his bones on defense early in his career at ‘Nova before blossoming as a scorer, agreed that defending Maxey is a group project. But certainly it began with him.
“Just trying to do whatever it takes to win,” he said. “The regular season means a lot, but it’s just another season after. Just giving it all.”
Added teammate Josh Hart, yet another Villanovan: “I never worry about (Bridges), because he’s gonna bring it every game. He’s gonna take his matchup personal.”
Brunson pointed out that defending at such a level is a matter of maintaining “that next-play mentality, having short-term memory, just focusing on the next play, next play.”
“So regardless of what’s happening, positive or negative,” he added, “he’s locked in for the next one. That’s just who he is.”
The Sixers closed the gap to 78-76 late in the third quarter, only to see the Knicks reel off the period’s last seven points, capped by Shamet’s right-wing three-pointer with 7.1 seconds left. New York, by that point up nine, then extended its lead to 16 in the fourth. And that was that.
“We’ve got one more, one more in a matter of hours, really,” Shamet said. “So try to get our bodies right, get our minds right, and try to go get one.”
Certainly they all seem to be pulling in the same direction. And it is all of them, too. That is what is most striking, and that is the difference in this series. Numbers. Bodies. Options. In order to fulfill expectations, Daryl Morey and Co. need to fill out the team’s roster. They need to find useful pieces along the lines of, say, Mikal Bridges or Landry Shamet. That is the challenge that awaits this offseason, which now appears to be very close indeed.
