Jalen Brunson (29.9 ppg) leads all remaining players in scoring these playoffs.
All eyes will be on Jalen Brunson tonight in a pivotal Game 5 matchup with the Pacers. In The Garden, with the Knicks’ season and a trip to the NBA Finals hanging in the balance, this is what he’s been built for. In this scenario, with everything on the line, there aren’t many players, if any, you would pick to be on your side ahead of the “Brunson Burner.”
The Kia NBA Clutch Player of the Year, who also earned second-team All-NBA honors and finished 10th in Kia NBA MVP voting, isn’t lacking in accolades. He’s exactly the caliber of player you expect to push your team over the top and extend its season in this situation.
Overall, Brunson has delivered as anticipated in this series on the offensive end. Averaging 33.3 ppg, his second-highest total in any of his 11 career playoff series. He’s also doing it efficiently, shooting 48.3% from the field on 22.25 field-goal attempts per game. In the lone contest that the Knicks won this series, he delivered the clinching bucket, a floater in the lane that put New York up for good as part of their 20-point comeback victory in Game 3.
Yet, despite his superb individual play on the offensive end, his squad finds itself on the precipice of elimination. When your star player is compiling elite stats, and the results aren’t in your favor, you have to peel back the layers to find the problems.
What’s immediately clear is it’s not that Brunson isn’t scoring, shooting, or simply, playing well enough. Instead, part of the issue may be that he’s doing too much.
The All-Star point guard’s USG% has gone through the roof this series, to 36.4%. That’s up from the 32.8% he posted against the Pistons and 28.4% against the Celtics, as well as the 28.9% he put up during the regular season. His assists have also taken a hit. After averaging 7.3 during the season, he averaged 8.2 against Detroit and 7.2 against Boston. Now that number has fallen to 5.5 against the Pacers.
As a team, the Knicks were 11th in the league during the season, dishing out 27.5 assists per game. They’re logging just 18 assists per game in this series.
In the Knicks’ Game 3 win against the Pacers, they only had 13 assists, but it’s worth noting that in the fourth quarter, when they looked the best they have all series, is when they tallied six of those. In Game 1, which they controlled for the majority of regulation, they had 19 assists through three quarters, but then only mustered five between the fourth quarter and overtime.
Granted, players need to make shots for assists to happen, but the Knicks are shooting a respectable 47.3% from the floor this series. The ball simply may not be moving enough for the Knicks, with too much reliance being placed upon Brunson’s shoulders. The weight he is carrying offensively may also be impacting him on the defensive end. Said another way, the energy he exerts on the offensive end creates a lack of it to expend on the defensive end.
The Pacers move the ball quickly on offense, working Brunson into screens and forcing players to react and switch. As the game wears on, and fatigue sets in, these reactions get slower, and the screens get harder to fight through. These situations have also caused Brunson to find himself in foul trouble and off the floor multiple times in this series.
It’s arguably too late in the series for the Knicks to make significant adjustments to their approach, but they’ll need to make tweaks to get the most out of their star player, both offensively and defensively.
With Karl Anthony-Towns questionable for tonight with a knee contusion, that task may be even harder. When Towns has shined, the Knicks have as well, whether it was a 35-point Game 1 performance or his 20-point fourth quarter in Game 3. New York may find it beneficial to get Towns the ball more and potentially create offense through him in the post. They may also want to revisit using Mikal Bridges as a distributor, which worked well against Boston when Bruson was off the floor.
Ultimately, to win tonight, the Knicks are going to need Jalen to be “Captain Clutch” and a difference-maker on offense. However, the key may be finding a balance between too much and not enough reliance on the All-Star point guard.
Watch Jalen Brunson and the Knicks attempt to extend their Eastern Conference Finals series against the Pacers in Game 5 tonight (8 ET, TNT).
