Still Basking in the Glow

New York should be feeling good after the win, but there's hope the Knicks still haven't hit their stride.

GOOD MORNING, AND NO I HAVE NOT SETTLED DOWN YET, HAVE YOU?

The Knicks will have another day off today before resuming their series in Cleveland tomorrow night, but don’t worry…there’s a whole lot to digest and analyze in the meantime.

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The Numbers Behind the Win

What a fun game.

The mark of a great playoff matchup is one where both teams not only leave everything on the table, but the winner wins because they made winning plays, and not because the loser handed it over.

Not that either team played a perfect game; far from it, in fact. There were 30 combined turnovers and just 18 total made threes in 60 attempts, many of which were open as a result of the generous help defense both teams were employing.

But all of that is merely a manifestation of playoff jitters, which are absolutely a thing. At the end of the day though, both teams came in and stuck to their respective game plans. There were few if any poor attempts, even if many didn’t go in. Big time players made big time plays across the board. Most of all, no one came remotely close to letting go of the rope, even for a short stretch. This was as intense as could be for the full 48.

Sure enough, these two evenly matched teams took it down to the wire, with the result in doubt until two Quentin Grimes free throws found the bottom of the net with 4.1 seconds remaining.

My guess: this won’t be the last time a game is decided in the closing moments.

With that to look forward to, here are five data points to keep in mind as we process this win and look forward to the rest of the series:

🏀 13-2: This is Cleveland’s record in games this season in which they hold an opponent below 30 attempts and under 30 percent shooting from deep. The two losses: December 4 vs the Knicks, when New York made just 5-of-29 from downtown, and Saturday night, when Thibs’ guys hit just 8-of-29 from long range.

Clearly, it would bode well for the Knicks to start hitting some shots in this series, but it’s good to know that all is not lost when they don’t.

🏀 11 to 4: New York’s offensive rebounding edge after halftime.

The second half offensive rebounding totals: one each for Randle, Brunson, Hartenstein and Toppin, and then three for Josh Hart and four for Mitchell Robinson. Mitch in particular overcame a weak (for him) first half and was his dominant self for most of the rest of the game. Between him and Hart, Cleveland should continue to have their hands full in this series.

🏀 21-for-65: You’ve surely seen by now that RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and Quentin Grimes combined to shoot 3-of-21 from the field. This stat takes that futility a step further and includes New York’s top two offensive options, Jalen and Julius, neither of whom shot particularly well.

Yes, the Cavs are the best defense in the league for a reason, and they more than earned that ranking. But you’d think that moving forward, the Knicks top five offensive options will combine to shoot better than 32 percent from the field. Meanwhile, Cleveland’s top options fared pretty well save for Evan Mobley, who was 4-of-13. Mitchell, Garland and Allen combined to shoot 27-of-51.

For New York to win the game despite that disparity in shooting from their best offensive options is probably a good sign.

🏀 168 to 128: The minutes played by Cleveland’s top four vs New York’s top four minutes getters, Randle, Hart, RJ and Brunson. On the other side of the rotation, the Cavs’ eighth and ninth men, Dean Wade and Ricky Rubio, played fewer combined minutes (13) than the ninth man in New York’s rotation, Obi Toppin (14). Everyone else played at least 22 minutes for the Knicks.

So yes, the Cavs may have the advantage at the top, and premier talent matters an awful lot in the playoffs, but New York’s presumed depth advantage is holding true after one game. We’ll see whether it takes its toll on Cleveland moving forward.

🏀 November 18, 2022: That’s the last time before Saturday that Immanuel Quickley failed to make a field goal in a game, and the only time this season he had an oh-fer with three turnovers. It was the 16th game of the season and already IQ’s third time missing all of his attempts from the field, in addition to five other games in the first 16 where he made two or fewer field goals. In the next 65 regular season outings, Quick had just nine more games of two or fewer makes from the field, and just three in the final 51 games.

His shooting lines in the three games that came immediately after those three most recent poor outings: 7-of-15 for 18 points, 8-of-18 for 26 points, and 7-of-17 for 25 points.

In other words, count on a big Quickley Game 2 performance incoming.

The Game Within the Game

Can one shot set the tone for an entire series?

When it relates to the most important game within the game - the matchup domino that will dictate so many others - it just might.

It was no secret how the Knicks were going to approach this series. With Cleveland employing two star guards, one of which continues to pump out a never-ending conveyor belt of 30-point postseason performances, New York would do their best to make someone else beat them.

So with the option to choose the form of their destructor, they were all too happy to let Isaac Okoro have at it. That was blatantly obvious on this first possession, when RJ was stride for stride with Darius Garland and Jalen Brunson still helped aggressively off the corner. This wasn’t a high schooler discretely hiding a cheat sheet on their lap during a test; he was waving it around for all to behold.

Okoro - just like everyone else in the building - knew this was coming, which couldn’t have been easy going into the game. That probably factored into an 0-for-4 performance from behind the arc for the guy who had been hitting 40 percent on threes since December 1. Okoro has also been dealing with a sore left knee, and was somewhat uncertain to play heading into Game 1.

Both his nerves and his knee will likely improve as the series goes on, so there’s a good chance he’ll have the opportunity to redeem himself and play more than the 23 minutes he saw on Saturday night.

But Okoro’s shooting is only part of the story.

One of the reasons many Cavs fans didn’t put much stock in Brunson’s 48-point explosion in Cleveland on March 31 is because Okoro wasn’t there to shadow New York’s diminutive dynamo. Well right off the bat, JB challenged Okoro, who guessed wrong when RJ approached to screen and had to commit a foul as a result.

Again: can one possession set a tone for an entire series?

The answer here isn’t as obvious. Okoro is still Cleveland’s best option on Brunson, who went off for 21 points after halftime after foul trouble limited him to just nine first half minutes. Okoro guarded Brunson for five shooting possessions in the second half, all of which came in the third quarter. Jalen was 2-of-5 on those, and the two makes were tough. That’s a reason to think the Cavs won’t abandon this matchup completely.

But we were also reminded that Brunson and the Knicks have some other tricks up their sleeve. Take this possession, when JB again calls RJ into the play to try and get a switch. Cleveland doesn’t bite, but maintaining their preferred matchup leaves Barrett momentarily open in the corner.

Obviously the result - an airball - is less than ideal, and was reflective of the larger struggles had by New York’s non-Hart wings. Assuming at least one (and ideally two or three) of RJ, IQ and Grimes get their act together, an outlet pass like this should bear fruit.

The larger takeaway for me is that Okoro, by himself, can not erase Brunson from the equation. Similarly, there were several possessions in which the Knicks took advantage of ways to get JB into non-Okoro matchups, either by playing with more pace or by slotting Brunson alongside Garland or Mitchell whenever one of them took free throws.

There’s also the matter of Okoro’s replacement down the stretch of this game - someone who presents an alternative option for J.B. Bickerstaff, even if it may not be a sustainable one.

Watching the initial fourth quarter possession with Cedi Osman on Brunson was like a prize fighter sizing up a new and unfamiliar opponent for the first time. Jalen gains some separation but ends up settling for a long two - something that would become a bit of theme in their matchup over the final nine minutes of game action.

From that point forward, they’d be matched up nine more times. On seven of those, Brunson shot the ball, converting three times. Once he dumped it off to Hart after Cedi stonewalled him on a drive attempt. Another time, RJ screened and rolled after Cleveland doubled. Brunson dumped it to him before RJ’s man could recover, and Barrett made the correct pass.

Ping, ping…Julius triple.

This is good offense.

Also good: two of JB’s makes were on drives where he got the step on Osman. When that happens, it’s game over. The other make was an isolation medium-long two at the free throw line - easy money for the Nova product. Of the four misses, three were long-ish fadeways. On the bright side, all saw Brunson get good to very good separation, but long twos are long twos. For all of Brunson’s wizardry, he takes a little more than two of those per game, making about half.

Moving forward, it’ll be interesting to see how much Bickerstaff bets on Cedi simply being a big wing who can move his feet fairly well. Of course, Brunson being a cybernetic organism sent from the future to destroy all humans / would-be defenders, he’ll recalibrate accordingly and adjust his bag of tricks at a geometric rate.

On the other end, Cedi certainly made a difference even when he didn’t attempt a shot.

Watch RJ’s reaction after Brunson ends up hard-doubling Mitchell. If this was Okoro or maybe even LeVert, RJ might stick closer to Garland and wait for Jalen to recover, but with Cedi, Barrett has to honor the shot. This starts a chain reaction that ends with Josh Hart attempting a last ditch box out effort on Mobley and ultimately committing a foul.

Was RJ right to dart over to Osman? Two possessions later, Cedi nailed a 3-pointer after Brunson left him to double in the post, so the answer would seem to be yes.

And then once he’s making shots, the dominos keep falling. Next Cavs possession, Brunson avoided committing full nail help on a Mitchell drive. Donovan penetrated, Mitch came up to confront him, and Mitchell hit Jarrett Allen for an easy dunk. My guess is that Bickerstaff continues to open with Okoro and close with Osman, and after 48 minutes of evidence, its hard to disagree.

(Also worth noting: it was in only 79 possessions this season, but lineups featuring Osman and the Cavs’ core four outscored opponents by 40 points per 100 non-garbage time possessions, according to Cleaning the Glass.)

Would this necessitate another adjustment for New York? With Julius Randle back and looking pretty close to his normal self, I wonder if the Knicks wouldn’t go more to Randle / Brunson pick and rolls late, try to get the switch, and let Randle cook on Osman, who is simply no match for him physically. Even if Cleveland doesn’t switch that, it should present opportunities for either Brunson to get a step towards the basket or for Julius to make a play in space - something he did very well when given the opportunity on Saturday night.

Either way, this chess match is nowhere near being over. Thankfully, New York is on the offensive after Game One.

💫 Stars of the Game 💫

There were a number of honorable mentions in this game, but rather than go through them here, I’m going to highlight their contributions in tomorrow’s letter, which I’ll use to dig into some of the finer points of this win. Stay tuned.

⭐️ Julius Randle: Like the player just ahead of him here, not Randle’s best night. 19 points on 20 shots, with an assist to turnover ratio under one, is less that ideal.

And yet, just like so many nights last season where big stat lines hid efforts that were not exactly conducive to winning, these numbers overshadowed a vitally important performance. With Brunson limited by foul woes early, Randle was the center of the offense, scoring 16 first half points and routinely making the right play any time Cleveland brought the help.

Even as his shooting subsided after halftime, his physicality maintained, and that was never more apparent than on the offensive rebound (and on-target pass!) that helped seal the win.

Randle’s shooting may fluctuate (he was 3-of-10 from deep on Saturday), but there’s nothing Cleveland can do to keep the bull out of the china shop down low.

Above all else, he played. We have no idea how compromised Randle really was by his injured ankle, and that in and of itself is a testament to his toughness.

Count on the best still to come for New York’s All-Star.

⭐️ ⭐️ Jalen Brunson: Andrew Claudio, my esteemed producer for the KFS Pod, had a friendly spat with me after the game on Saturday night.

We were going over candidates for moment of the game, and after the two obvious choices - the Hart three and the Randle offensive rebound - he wanted to nominate Brunson’s running layup with 35 seconds remaining to put the Knicks up four, while I wanted to go with this step-back triple from several minutes earlier:

We ended up splitting the difference and nominating both, but really, neither of us was wrong. Both shots were symbolic of Brunson as New York’s unequivocal closer. Other than the Hart triple and the final Grimes free throws, JB scored all of his team’s points in the final nine minutes, which were nine of the 21 points he had in the second half.

Was it his best game? Not really, and that’s even brushing aside the foul trouble that limited him to nine minutes before halftime. 24 shots to get 27 points is far from a Brunson masterpiece.

And yet, we look up at the end of the night and see that in his first playoff game as a Knick, Jalen added himself to the following list of players who have ever scored at least 27 points in a road victory while wearing a Knick uniform:

• Latrell Sprewell

• Allan Houston

• Derek Harper

• Patrick Ewing

• Bill Cartwright

• Bernard King

• Bob McAdoo

• Walt Frazier

• Bill Bradley

• Willis Reed

Not terrible company.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Josh Hart: As best as I can tell, using the search parameters of all Game 1’s of first round series, Josh Hart joins Grant Hill as the second non-big man in NBA history to put up at least 15 points and 10 rebounds on at least 70 percent shooting in his playoff debut. Like Hart, Hill also made his debut on the road, except his Pistons lost by 20. Hart’s efforts were very much in furtherance of a win.

It’s sort of a random statistical quirk, but then again, Hart is one of one - a unique player in so many ways, not the least of which is his ability to make quite literally every big play when his team needs it the most.

Knicks fans know the drill all too well by now. Need someone to cover the opposing team’s best player? We’ve got Hart for that. What about someone to grab a key offensive board (he had five) or clean up somebody else’s mess? Hart’s got you for both of those too. Drain a floater to calm the collective nerves at the start of the fourth quarter? Give Hart a call! And of course, might the situation call for the biggest shot the franchise has seen in, oh, I don’t know…24 years?

Hart has it on lock.

To echo the words of Draymond Green, there are 82-game players, and there are 16-game players. I’d call Hart the latter, but then again, he was in the 99th percentile in on/off differential for the entire freaking league following his trade to the Knicks. I guess that makes him…a 98-game player? Sure, why not.

Hart completely changed their season, and then on Saturday night, he might have saved it as well.

🏀

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