Failure to Launch

The Knicks offense could never get going against a Rockets team employing a formula that is fast becoming familiar.

Good morning! Before we get to the game recap, your daily reminder that we’re doing another watch party this week and giving out two free Knicks tickets at halftime of the Bucks game:

If you think you might want to come, go ahead and put your name down here so we get an idea of the headcount, although anyone is free to come and party with us, of course.

Game 6: Rockets 109, Knicks 97

• The Knicks lacked pep on both ends to start, falling down by as many as 15 in the first half when the Rockets dominated the offensive glass and ran out in transition

• Houston’s struggles from deep kept New York in the game, and a 10-0 run late in the second quarter got them to within five at halftime

• Like the Cavs, the Rockets switched liberally, which limited New York’s 3-point attempts, particularly from Karl-Anthony Towns

• The Knicks had no answer for Alperen Sengun, who ate vs both KAT and OG

• Towns took only two shots in the fourth as Jalen Brunson forced some poor looks

• With no Cam Payne, Tyler Kolek played six first half minutes. Only seven players saw the court after halftime. Brunson and Bridges played the entire second half

That’s more than I usually like to put in the bullet points section of the game recap, but for as many parts of this game as there are to dig into, we can probably simply it into three basic components.

Thing 1: Offensive growth is not linear.

There were times in the fourth when New York’s offense worked like a charm.

Exploiting the fact that Houston had one player - Sengun - who they really didn’t want to switch, when the Knicks were patient and trusted each other to make plays, good things usually happened.

And then there were other times where the opposite occurred.

It was odd to see Jalen Brunson of all people steer the crunch time offense into a jetty. We got so used to seeing him successfully don Superman’s cape over the last two seasons that to see it sullied by his own poor decisions was unnerving, to say the least.

It should also be comforting.