Game 1 Takeaways

Let's go back and revisit a fourth quarter for the ages.

Good morning! Game 2 of Knicks vs Pistons tips off at 7:30 tonight, and you can come join me at halftime for the usual Zoom. Isaiah Stewart is questionable for Detroit with a leg injury, as first reported by Ian Begley. No injuries for New York. In other news, Jalen Brunson was nominated as one of three finalists for NBA Clutch Player of the Year, along with Nikola Jokic and Anthony Edwards.

Game 1 Takeaways

Couple things before we get into the film today.

First off, let’s recognize how vitally important this win was given the historical precedent. Teams that win Game 1 win the series 77.8 percent of the time overall and 79.4 percent of the time in the first round. Also, the Knicks have lost their last six playoff series in which they dropped Game 1, so there’s that.

The second piece of recognition goes to the Detroit Pistons. Through three quarters, they’d hit 13-of-24 shots from behind the arc, which is a pretty insane conversion rate for any team not named the Boston Celtics. They also played with an incredible amount of poise, especially during the third quarter but even early on in the fourth, responding with a 7-2 run after the Knicks cut the lead to three. Every one of their veterans came through with a big effort, which is especially impressive given that Tobias Harris, Tim Hardaway Jr, Dennis Schroder and even Malik Beasley were cast off by other franchises in recent years.

But come away with a win, they did not.

How impressed should we be with that victory for the Knicks, who were favored in the game and the series yet trailed by eight with nine minutes to go? To go back to Detroit’s shooting for a moment, the Pistons had been 8-2 this season when shooting at least as well from deep as they did on Saturday and 16-4 when hitting at least 41 percent of their long balls. Three of those losses came to an opponent who also hit at least 40 percent from deep (which the Knicks did not) and the fourth came at the hands of the mighty Thunder.

From that perspective, this was a solid effort by New York to stay connected and never let the lead get above double digits. The fourth quarter provided us with an all-time run that secured the win, but positive signs were there even before that two-way explosion, with the brightest and flashiest of those signs coming in the form of a seven-foot, 269-pound monster who has been waiting two years for this moment.

In their first round bout against Cleveland, Mitchell Robinson single handedly altered a series in which he averaged a mere eight points a night. On Saturday, he scored just six points, but he was as impressive as any Knick in his limited minutes.

Aside from throwing down one the best postseason dunks of the Thibs era, Robinson reminded everyone that he’s the longest tenured Knick for good reason. When he’s fully engaged, he can completely alter the tenor of a game without converting a single basket.

I mentioned in yesterday’s newsletter that he and OG formed a devastating duo in the second quarter, and credit to Shax for backing that sentiment up with some data. When those two guarded the pick & roll, Detroit was 0-for-7 from the field.

Of course, Robinson wasn’t the only Knick center who had himself a night on the defensive end.

All the attention afterwards went to what Karl-Anthony Towns did in the fourth quarter. We’ll get to some of those possessions shortly, but the signs of this being a different sort of game from KAT were present early on. The key was not only Towns himself, but who he was defending alongside.

Before the series started, my thinking was that Mikal Bridges would start on Cade Cunningham. For one, this would free up OG to offer backline help. Second, it would keep the Anunoby-on-Cade pivot available if and when they needed to push that button.

Shows what the hell I know. In starting OG on Cunningham, Tom Thibodeau made sure that Detroit’s best offensive weapon never got going, and a big part of that calculation involved Karl-Anthony Towns. Regardless of whether he plays in drop or at the level of the screen as he usually did in this game, Towns is a far more effective defender when Cunningham’s initial defender is able to stay attached.

When that defender is Anunoby, the ball-handler is enveloped more often than not. It allows Towns to defend with the sort of confidence that he had last season, when he helped Minnesota to the top of the league’s defensive rating ranks.

That starts with arriving to the point of attack early, as KAT did when Duren set this screen on the opening Pistons’ possession of the fourth quarter:

That initial denial of penetration made a 4-on-3 short roll situation tenable, and Josh Hart - exceptional in the second half across the board - perfectly timed his help. It gave KAT just enough time to figure out where he needed to rotate to next, ultimately resulting in a 24-second shot clock violation.

This level of defense will almost always be passable if the Knicks have moderate to strong defenders surrounding Towns on the floor. That he followed it up mere seconds later by nailing a triple when Jalen Duren had the audacity to go under a screen is why Towns remains one of the most tantalizing talents in the sport.

His strong play continued a a few minutes later:

Again, KAT is timely with the help, and again, a Knick is there with the perfectly timed rotation to stymie the momentary Pistons advantage that was created. This time, it was Cam Payne imperiling himself against a large oncoming object like Regina George at the end of Mean Girls. Thankfully, instead of getting run over, OG Anunoby did what OG Anunoby does best and turned a Detroit opportunity into a Knicks win.

After KAT had his only poor defensive possession of the fourth, getting caught flat-footed on a Dennis Schroder drive, Payne regained momentum with and and-one finish at the rim. Notably, that Schroder make was Detroit’s only half court basket in the first 7:25 of the fourth quarter that didn’t follow an offensive rebound.

On the next Detroit possession, the Pistons decided to test their luck on New York’s other pickable defender, which brings us to the third reason OG-on-Cade was the right move all along:

While Towns may not always be the fleetest of foot, he is a very large human. When engaged at the level of the screen, he can at least momentarily halt the momentum of a play, giving the point of attack defender enough time to recover if a bruising center has dislodged his progress.

That isn’t the case with Brunson, whose smaller stature makes him easier to pass over and around. For that reason, it’s imperative that the initial defender stay connected to the ball-handler. While a guard-sized screener (who Brunson can always hide on in this and most matchups) might dislodge the pursuit of Mikal Bridges, good luck hoping that Tim Hardaway Jr, Malik Beasley or Dennis Schroder will stop OG Anunoby in his tracks.

On this possession, we see Anunoby dispense with the first Schroder screen like he wasn’t even there. To his credit, Schroder does a nice job on the re-screen, but that’s where Brunson deserves his own kudos, reading Cade perfectly and getting himself in proper position to wall off middle. That gave OG time to recover and deflect the ball out of bounds.

Is this a lot of work to cover for a minus defender? It sure is, but shots like this are a reminder that Brunson is worth the effort:

It’s kinda wild that Brunson scored 23 points on 75 percent shooting and dished five assists after halftime and it barely garnered a yawn from most fans. Only three players in franchise history have put up those stats over the course of a playoff game¹. He has succeeded in normalizing the incredible.

And yes, while I get that there is a sentiment among some fans that Brunson’s isolations will not pave the way to ultimate success, no team in the history of the sport has won a blessed thing without elite advantage creators creating advantages for themselves or their teammates. Finding the right balance between those two potential outcomes is the hardest puzzle for an NBA superstar to figure out, but if any player on any franchise deserves some modicum of grace for occasionally struggling to walk that tightrope, it is the Captain.

Fast forward a few possessions, and we saw Cunningham reach a level of frustration where he said “to hell with a screen, let me try and go one-on-one.”

He chose…poorly.

After the game, KFS reader JG - in attendance for the proceedings - commented that OG should have been the three star player, and I think he might be right. Given what he can do on the offensive end, there’s a very good argument that he’s the most valuable role player in the sport.

That may seem like damning with faint praise, but I promise you its not. If you gave any contending team the choice between OG and half the “superstars” in this league, I think they’d pick our guy.

Back to the best defensive quarter of KAT’s Knick career, with yet another assist from the indomitable OG Anunoby:

This time, Detroit tries a pick & roll with the big initiating instead of Cunningham. Nice try, but Towns completely blew up the play by getting all up in Cade’s grill and forcing a turnover. He followed this up with a nice contest of Tobias Harris under the hoop after he was screened onto Harris for a one-on-one opportunity that went nowhere.

On offense, Towns finished up his masterpiece with a perfect short roll pass to a cutting Hart under the hoop, and then one last bucket that was effectively the final dagger:

Of all the takeaways from Game 1, KAT’s performance was unquestionably the biggest. Detroit didn’t exploit him nearly enough when they had the ball, and showed no signs of being able to stop him when they didn’t. If this is the Karl-Anthony Towns that shows up for the remainder of this series, it isn’t going to be a very long one.

On that note, five more quick thoughts before we turn the page to Game 2:

• The Knicks drew three 3-second calls on Jalen Duren. The strategy of guarding (and ignoring) Josh Hart with your center isn’t as easy as it sounds.

• No Landry Shamet in the second half after 10 underwhelming minutes. I predicted a big series from Shamet and I bet he keeps getting opportunities, but this was a reminder that his leash is not an extensive one.

• Speaking of Shamet, he twice got knocked off his pursuit of a curling Malik Beasley with off ball screens. This happened at least once with Payne as well. Off-ball defenders have to do a better job of staying connected to Beasley at all times, and if they get foiled, someone else in the vicinity needs to pick up the slack.

• Deuce’s 3-point shooting still hasn’t come around, and his issues finishing at the rim reared their head once again. He’s never going to be more than a bench player unless he figures out that part of his game.

• The eight-second violation with under 90 seconds to go was embarrassing and more than a little frustrating. Please clean this stuff up guys, before it costs you a playoff game.

Giddy up for Game 2. Here we go.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

1. Patrick Ewing, Walt Frazier, and Derek Harper.