Game 2 On Deck

The Knicks look to maintain momentum tonight at the Garden.

Good morning! It seems like Game 1 just ended (yesterday was a blur for me, I don’t know about anyone else), and already we’re on to the next one, as Jay-Z would say.

Game Night

TONIGHT: Sixers at Knicks, 7:30 pm, TNT

Injury Report: It’s all clear for the Knicks, while Joel Embiid will once again be listed as questionable. De’Anthony Melton remains out.

Halftime: No Zoom tonight, as I’ll be at the game, but I’ll be back on Thursday night.

If anyone is heading to MSG for the game and is planning on having a beverage or two beforehand, I’ll be at Penn 6 for Happy Hour (see the flyer at the bottom of this newsletter; it’s right around the block from the Garden).

What to watch for: A whole lot, as I’ll get to below.

Magic Numbers Check

Last week I went through five magic numbers for this series based on season-long trends. I thought it might be interesting to check in on how those predictors fared in Game 1, plus introduce a new magic number that I’m guessing will go a long way to deciding this series.

✅ 16 Threes

They hit 16 exactly, moving New York to 18-3 when they hit at least than many in a game this season. The 16 threes is also tied for the second highest ever in a Knicks playoff game, following the 17 they hit against the Cavs in 1996 (!) and tied with the 16 they knocked down against Miami in Game 2 last season.

We can’t underestimate how important it was to hit this number considering how poorly the Knicks shot from inside the arc. Making the feat even more amazing, in the majority of the previous 20 games they hit the magic number, either Donte or Jalen went off for at least a handful of threes by themselves. On Saturday, they combined for just three. That’s tied with the season opener against the Celtics for their lowest combined total in any game New York hit at least 16 threes.

Taking Brunson and DiVincenzo’s place, of course, were McBride with five, Hart with four and Bogey with three.

✅ 6 Blocks

They had seven - four from Mitch, two from Hartenstein, and one from Donte - moving them to 21-2 when they swat at least that many this season, and 14-0 when they block at least seven shots.

The Knicks centers formed a wall around the rim all night long.

✅ 10 Forced Turnovers

Close call, as the Knicks forced 11, but it was just enough. The Knicks now move to 48-24 when they force double digit giveaways, and remain 3-8 with nine or fewer.

❌ 22 Opponent Free Throws

Philly had exactly 22, so New York dodged a bullet here. They had been 4-8 in games when their opponent attempted at least this many freebies.

❌ 50% for Josh Hart

This one clearly deserves an asterisk, because even though Hart didn’t shoot over 50 percent from the field, his 4-for-8 showing from deep gave him a 58.3 effective field goal percentage, which would rank just outside his top-25 regular season performances. More importantly, he had a Game Score of 19.1, which he only topped seven times this season. They’re now 7-1 in those games.

BONUS NUMBER: 50

As in, a 50 effective field goal percentage for Jalen Brunson.

This magic number isn’t based on the regular season, because Brunson topped it in his sleep. Only 24 times did he fail to get to 50, which is easy to understand when you see what it takes to get there. For instance, in New York’s February 3 loss to the Lakers, Jalen shot just 15-of-31 overall and 1-of-6 from deep, but shot a 50 eFG% on the nose.

Brunson regularly rocketed past this number, finishing with an average of 54.3 percent - an impressive figure considering his volume and position. In this series, he doesn’t need to reach his highest heights, or even the intermediate ones - not with how the Sixers are guarding him and daring other players to beat them.

But he will need to reach a certain level of efficiency, so I’m setting 50 as the target number. We’ll see if he can get there, like he did six times in 11 playoff games last season.

At the very least, he’ll need to be more efficient than he was on Saturday, when his 32.7 eFG% would have ranked 10th lowest for his season¹. New York is now 5-5 in those games. Here were the other wins:

• November 6 against the Clippers, when Julius and RJ (remember him?) combined for 53 while three other non-Brunson Knicks hit double figures and they shot 39 percent from deep.

• January 1 against the Wolves, when Randle had 39 and OG and Donte combined for 32.

• January 9 against the Blazers, when they blew the doors off Portland behind 23 from Anunoby, 20 from Julius, and 46 combined from Grimes, McBride and DiVincenzo. Jalen was their sixth leading scorer.

• February 22 in Philly, when Brunson did have 21, but Bogey, Hart, Precious and Donte all scored between 16 and 22 en route to the win.

Before Saturday, the post-All-Star win against the Sixers was the only time they’d overcome this poor of a shooting performance from JB without the assistance of Julius Randle. Maybe Philly is the elixir to bad Brunson games, but logic says two things are true:

1. The Knicks can’t afford for Jalen to have many more sub-40 eFG% games in this series, and…

2. His worst is likely behind him.

Speaking of the worst being left in the past…

Fixing What Isn’t Broken?

Following Game 1, the biggest topic surrounding the Knicks has been how they can tweak their offense to get easier looks, not only for Jalen Brunson, but other key offensive figures as well.

New York’s second and third leading scorers during the regular season, Donte DiVincenzo and OG Anunoby, combined for just 19 points- about 11 below their season average (and 16 below if we factor in DiVo’s increased scoring after the Randle injury). We also saw Isaiah Hartenstein take on an increased scoring burden as the season wound down, scoring in double figures in nine of his final 13 games. He had just six.

Looking back at the game, while Philly’s coverage certainly had a lot to do with the Knicks’ struggles (and Brunson’s in particular), there’s good reason to believe the worst is behind them. It has to do with New York’s bread and butter, which was both unbuttered and moldy on Saturday night.

For the season, the Knicks took and made as many short midrange shots as almost anyone. According to Cleaning the Glass, they were 7th in frequency and 10th in accuracy of such shots. Sacramento and Miami were the only other teams in the top 10 in both categories.

This was largely by design. For one, short mid-rangers yield a plethora of offensive rebound opportunities, and New York has stocked its roster chock full of offensive rebounding machines. That was on full display in Game 1, as the numbers from yesterday’s newsletter show.

But they also view these as positive scoring opportunities, in large part because they employ some of the best short mid-range shooters in the league. Jalen Brunson, Donte DiVincenzo, Isaiah Hartenstein and Bojan Bogdanovic are all in the 78th percentile or higher for their respective positions on shots between four and 14 feet from the rim.

That part of the plan did not come to fruition on Saturday night, when New York hit just 4-of-27 shots from that distance. Again, many of these were off the hands of Brunson with a lot of attention directed his way, but there were also several other, much better looks that simply didn’t go down:

Their final conversion rate of 14.8 percent was not only their lowest of the season from the short mid-range, but the gap between that and the second lowest number is larger than the gap between the second worst number and the seventh worst:

As you could have probably guessed, the Knicks haven’t fared very well in these games, only coming away with one other win when they hit less than 30 percent from this distance.

That game - against Portland on January 9 - also comes with a massive asterisk, because only 12 percent of their shots that night came from between four and 14 feet, which was their third lowest single-game frequency of the season.

On Saturday, 29 percent of their shots came from the short mid-range, which was among their 20 highest numbers in 83 games. In retrospect, it’s astounding they were able to overcome such paucity to steal a victory.

Then again, this was also New York’s best above-the-break shooting performance of the entire season, with 16 makes in 26 attempts.

Any way you slice it, this game wasn’t just out of bounds; it was outside the stadium and on the far reaches of the parking lot.

So…what’s the adjustment? Besides what I discussed yesterday about finding different ways to involve Josh Hart in Jalen Brunson-centric actions, maybe the best solution is to keep doing what they’re doing. The numbers say that New York will hit far more of the shots they missed in Game 1. Brunson will have to do a much better job of avoiding rear-contests that led to three of his shots getting blocked, but several other looks were makable, as was the case for guys like Donte and Isaiah. The insane ATB 3-point numbers will come down, but it’ll be balanced by a better corner three percentage (NY was 0-for-9 from the corners, the first time all season they’ve taken more than five corner threes without hitting at least one).

And of course, all eyes will remain glued to Embiid. What he can and can’t do on both ends of the court will continue to be the overarching storyline that dominates this matchup.

That’s about it. A 2-0 lead is on the table. In Knicks franchise history, they have lost just one playoff series with that advantage, and it took Michael Jordan to pull it off.

Lose, and it’s a whole new ball game.

The playoffs continue tonight.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

1. Not counting the 47-second outing in Cleveland, when he had a 0 eFG%.