Steve Popper: Jalen Brunson, Knicks starters back Mike Brown's faith in them
Knicks guard Jalen Brunson shoots against Atlanta Hawks guard Dyson Daniels during the second half of an NBA game Monday in Atlanta. Credit: AP/Colin Hubbard
ATLANTA
You’d think by now we’d be past this, all of the questions and consternation about just how team that the Knicks built for this moment — or really a moment to come in about two weeks when the playoffs begins — can work together.
But Monday night, in the 79th game of the season, there was still a nagging feeling that maybe the numbers and analytics are right and the starting five that the Knicks have put together just doesn’t work.
And then we were reminded once again in the final minutes that when Jalen Brunson is one of those five, things tend to figure themselves out.
For a night, or really for the final five minutes and 28 seconds, the pieces were placed on the floor together against a red-hot Atlanta Hawks squad and with Brunson leading the way, but assists from each one of the much-maligned group, the Knicks pulled out a 108-105 win at State Farm Arena.
It, at least for the moment, satisfied a lot of the questions. The Knicks hadn’t beaten a team with a winning record in exactly a month, dating back to a win in Denver on March 6 and spanning five consecutive losses. Brunson had not been his usual Captain Clutch self of late, and for three quarters of this game, it seemed like more of the same with Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart trying to hold the game close until Brunson could do what he does.
And with 17 of his 30 points coming in the final 6:13 of the game, the Knicks lived up to the plan — one they hope to carry over the final three games with playoff seeding on the line and then into the postseason, where the true judgment on all of this will come.
“It was great,” said Towns, who finished with 21 points, 12 rebounds and six assists. “And it was one of those things where obviously give credits to all of our teammates. Mitch [Robinson] put us in the position to be there, to have a chance to win. First, we’ve got one of the best closers in the NBA in JB. So you feel good about your chances. We were just ready for the moment. It was funny, I thought in my mind I would have to hit a big shot to find a way and it ended up being three assists. God told me what to do and I just accepted what the defense gave. JB made the shots. He’s been known to do that when the game matters.”
“I think everything matters,” Brunson said. “So regardless if you’re up 30, down 30, if it’s a close game, the way you finish games translates to the next game. So being able to have that rhythm going into the next game is really important for us.”
It took a Brunson shot in the lane with 28.7 seconds to play and then a pair of free throws with 1.2 seconds left — and then surviving a half court bank shot by CJ McCollum that came just a tenth of a second late — to pull it out. But they did and eased the tension.
It might be hard to remember all the way back to the start of the NBA season, but that is when Mike Brown was trying to put his imprint on the Knicks and experimenting with a new starting lineup, plugging. Robinson in and bringing Hart off of the bench.
It was the same formula that his predecessor, Tom Thibodeau, had turned to in the midst of the Knicks playoff battles last season. But Brown saw it and abandoned that plan by the 15th game of the regular season, toying in that span with a lineup that had Landry Shamet starting in place of Robinson.
In the end though, Brown turned back to the lineup that had logged more minutes together than any in the NBA last season and now, with the season winding down and the playoffs in sight, Brown said that he is not inclined to change.
“I don’t believe in never ever,” Brown said. “But right now we’re going to start that five and that’s how I foresee it. If I feel I need to make a change at any time, I’ll make a change. But I don’t feel that way right now.”
If Brown turned to social media he would find plenty of advice, whether it is to pull Hart in favor of Deuce McBride or Landry Shamet, to add Robinson again, to shift Bridges to the second unit and just about any combination that doesn’t include Brunson leaving his spot as the leader of the team.
And Brown admitted that internally those discussions are had throughout the season.
“There’s debate literally all the time,” Brown said. “Obviously there was a debate at the start of the season when we started two bigs. And there was debate almost every day because I was the only one with that [plan to start Robinson and bring Hart off the bench] –- and I was getting hammered this angle, that angle, every angle.
“So we talked about it a lot. That’s just chatter that you have throughout the course of the year, trying to ways to improve your team. So I think there’s always going to be chatter about it. But there’s nothing I’ve felt close to acting on yet.”
Nights like Monday back that faith up, at least for a night.
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
