DETROIT — Jalen Brunson has a simple adjustment for Game 3: Getting off the ball.
“There were a couple possessions where I had some bad shots, and that’s on me just to understand the situation where I need to get off of it,” Brunson said after Knicks shootaround at Seaholm High School on Thursday morning. “But that’s on the offensive side of the ball.”
When asked to clarify what he meant by “get off of it,” the Knicks’ All-Star didn’t mince words.
“Pass the ball,” he said. “I gotta say it in French? Pass the ball.”
Ball movement — or the lack thereof — doomed the Knicks in a 100-94 Game 2 loss at Madison Square Garden. Now, with the series knotted at one and Games 3 and 4 set in hostile Detroit territory, Brunson is zeroing in on what needs to change.
It’s clear the answer is him.
Brunson ranks third in playoff touches per game behind Denver’s Nikola Jokic and Detroit’s Cade Cunningham, but he ranks No. 1 in average time of possession (10.1 minutes, ahead of James Harden), average seconds per touch (six seconds) and average dribbles per touch (5.92).
Brunson scored a game-high 37 points in Monday’s loss but needed 27 shots to get there. Mikal Bridges’ 18 attempts were the next closest, and no other Knick took more shots than Brunson made (12). That includes Karl-Anthony Towns, the team’s All-Star big man, who didn’t attempt a single shot in the fourth quarter and finished with 10 points on 5-of-11 shooting from the field in Game 2.
For a Knicks team loaded with scoring options, the imbalance was glaring — and costly.
“A lot of missed opportunities by us,” Brunson said after shootaround. “They played great and we’ve gotta bounce back. It’s a lot of opportunities where I can be better as a player and we can be better as a team. So a lot of adjustments we need to make.”
The Knicks, of course, have been highly effective with the ball in Brunson’s hands — and the hardware backs it up. On Wednesday, he was officially crowned the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year, a recognition of his late-game heroics throughout a season in which he averaged 26 points and 7.3 assists while leading New York to its second straight 50-win campaign and the No. 3 seed in the East.
But even with Brunson’s brilliance, the team has yet to strike the right balance between him creating his own shot and involving the talent around him. That balance was clearer during his month long absence with a right ankle sprain — a stretch where Towns, OG Anunoby, and Mikal Bridges all saw notable scoring jumps.
Josh Hart pointed to LeBron James as the example — the blueprint for knowing when to score and when to steer.
“That’s the toughest part is trying to find that balance. I think him coming in, maybe starting the game to try to get some of these guys involved, get them free flowing,” said Hart. “You see it with LeBron all the time. One thing with LeBron: He comes in the first quarter, the second quarter, makes sure he gets his guys involved and gets them into rhythm and then he takes over when you need him to take over. So you can take bits and pieces from guys like that.”
Hart also suggested shifting some of the playmaking duties to Bridges could help jumpstart the offense — especially when Detroit’s game plan has taken him, the usual secondary connector, out of rhythm.
The Pistons have been guarding Hart with centers, a tactical choice designed to sag off him and clog driving lanes, which has largely stifled his ability to facilitate.
“Part of the reason, sometimes when the five is on me, I can’t be that other ball-handler that brings it up and gets him off the ball,” said Hart. “So maybe we’ll put Mikal in that role or something like that. So it’s a feeling out process, but the good thing is it’s all fixable things.”
The Knicks named Brunson the 36th captain in franchise history last season, when his scoring surge helped power New York to 50 wins and the East’s No. 2 seed. But this year, the assignment is different. With more weapons around him, Brunson’s role has evolved from singular engine to strategic distributor — one who can still take over when needed, but who now has teammates capable of helping him carry the load. The challenge is trusting them to do it.
“I mean, I just gotta make the right decisions,” he said after shootaround on Thursday. “There’s time to be aggressive and there’s times to make plays for others,” said Brunson. “It’s always going to be a learning adjustment, it’s never going to be mastered but I’ve gotta continue to work for that. So there’s always room for improvement, always room to get better.”
Hart says Brunson’s teammates are still navigating when and how to speak up — figuring out the right moments to voice when they’re being iced out of the offense or need more touches to find a rhythm.
“That comes with familiarity and trust, and a lot of times, you only get that when you go through adverse situations together. So it takes time,” he said. “And there’s times where — there was a play with JB, a pull-up, he had KAT wide open. I’m not sure if KAT said something to him, but I know that if KAT goes, ‘look at the pop, I’m open on the pop,’ he’s going to look at that.
“Same thing with all those guys. So it’s definitely a feeling out process. It comes with time. But we’re all old enough. I think our hearts are in the right place. So you know it’s not coming out of any selfish intent. So that’s something we can do more, and we will do more of.”
