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Jalen Brunson’s return was supposed to restore order — not raise new questions.
But that’s the funny thing about rhythm. It doesn’t always pick up where it left off. And for a Knicks team that weathered Brunson’s month-long absence by discovering new offensive engines — OG Anunoby, Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges — the return of their All-Star didn’t just require reintegration. It demanded a rebalancing act.
Because when Brunson went down, the Knicks didn’t collapse. They adapted. They found new ways to score, to defend, to survive. Now that he’s back, they’re still figuring out how to merge the version of themselves that thrived without him with the one that’s supposed to soar because of him.
“I think the balance is there. Obviously, we didn’t finish the season the way we wanted to as a team, but I think this week will help, going to the playoffs and knowing what’s at stake will help,” Brunson said after practice at the team’s Tarrytown training facility on Tuesday. “We do all that work during the season to get to this point to see where we are. There’s been ups and downs. Now that we’re here, it’s: What are we going to do now?
If head coach Tom Thibodeau had it his way, his team would be hitting its stride — sharp, cohesive, connected — with the playoffs on the horizon. Instead, the Knicks starters ended the regular season on a three-game skid and enter the postseason not entirely sure what version of themselves will show up.
This isn’t how the story was supposed to go. But this is the version they’ve got.
The question now isn’t whether the Knicks can find balance — it’s how they can reclaim the version of themselves that built it in the first place.
Because everything changed the night their captain went down. And everything had to change again once he came back.
The turning point was March 6. An overtime loss to the Lakers. A twisted ankle for Brunson. A suddenly uncertain stretch run for a team that had clawed its way to a 40-22 record.
After all, it wasn’t just Brunson who’d leave the rotation due to injury. Sixth man Miles McBride would go on to miss two-and-a-half weeks due to a groin injury that sidelined him on March 20. Almost a week later, the next point guard up, veteran Cam Payne, went down with an ankle injury of his own, leaving just Delon Wright (acquired at the trade deadline in the Jericho Sims deal) and rookie Tyler Kolek as the only healthy point guards left on the roster.
All the while, Thibodeau had prepared for a different challenge: an unrelenting road schedule at a grueling cadence. No team had more back-to-backs coming out of the All-Star break than the Knicks, who had four such back-to-backs over their final 12 games.
The Knicks also faced a road-heavy schedule featuring 11 away games in the first 14 out of the break. Many teams would have broken under the circumstances.
The Knicks bent close to the point of no return — back-to-back losses to two of the worst teams in basketball will do that to a title contender — but then, they bounced back.
“The challenge was to get through that, and I thought our guys did,” Thibodeau said after Tuesday’s practice. “We had an unusual April. We had guys that were out for games, and we also had an unusual schedule with three back-to-backs [in the last eight games].”
Without Brunson, the Knicks went on to win five of their next six games, seven in a nine-game stretch, all before the captain returned to the lineup.
They did it on the defensive end with Mitchell Robinson rearing into “seven-foot demon” form. They also ran offense through OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges, the pair of wings known for their defense who both shouldered bigger scoring loads with the captain out of the rotation.
Anunoby, in particular, averaged 23.1 points in March, the best scoring month of his career.
“I think that’s the nature of our league: how quickly can you adapt to things? So when you come into a new season, you always have some new faces, and how do you get everyone onto the same page? So you have to have everyone pulling together,” Thibodeau said. “And then, same thing, things happen during the course of a season, and you can lose a guy for 10 games, and then someone else comes in, and their strengths are different than the guy they’re replacing.”
Whether or not the Knicks can continue to maximize Anunoby’s newfound offensive gifts while keeping Brunson in attack mode will be a determining factor in how far New York can go in its postseason run.
The plan was to get Brunson back into a scoring rhythm. Mission accomplished. Two 27-point performances against quality NBA defenses will make an All-Star feel like himself again.
There’s no question the Knicks will need their captain to score in bunches if they’re going to get by the Pistons in the first round. For the most part, Brunson has had his way with the Detroit defense: 31, 36 and 36-point performances through their first three meetings of the season, then 15 in the April 10 loss on the road.
Brunson looked like himself. The Knicks, however, did not resemble the same team that kept the ship afloat with the captain off the deck.
Anunoby scored 32 in Brunson’s first game back. He shot below 40 percent from the field in each of his last two games with the captain back and did nor register more than 15 points in either.
Bridges, too, found a scoring rhythm with Brunson out of the rotation: He averaged 19.5 points in March and scored 20-plus five times in an eight-game span leading into Brunson’s return.
Bridges tallied just 14 points against the Celtics and 17 points against both the Cavs and Pistons.
“Obviously we want Jalen out there, so that makes us a different team,” said Thibodeau. “And we’ve got to get re-acclimated to that, but that’s the challenge of the entire league.”
The Knicks have just days to sharpen before hosting the Pistons in Game 1 of the No. 3 vs. No. 6 East first-round series on Saturday.
Brunson’s rhythm is back — but so are the stakes. He can’t push the Knicks to new heights by himself, and with the help he’s got in the starting lineup, the captain doesn’t need to shoulder the responsibility alone.
The Knicks have the talent. They have a superstar guard, an all-world big man, two of the premier two-way wings in the league, and a human wrecking ball that is Josh Hart playing full speed for 48 minutes.
To maximize their potential, the Knicks will need to strike the right balance. That means getting all their weapons firing on all cylinders, not just their biggest gun.
“We’ve got days now where we can definitely get work in. Also these last couple of games have been great for [Jalen] to get that rhythm back and do what he does best,” said Karl-Anthony Towns. “Just continue to work. We’ve done a lot of things this year with each other and as a team, so just building on that.”
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But that’s the funny thing about rhythm. It doesn’t always pick up where it left off. And for a Knicks team that weathered Brunson’s month-long absence by discovering new offensive engines — OG Anunoby, Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges — the return of their All-Star didn’t just require reintegration. It demanded a rebalancing act.
Because when Brunson went down, the Knicks didn’t collapse. They adapted. They found new ways to score, to defend, to survive. Now that he’s back, they’re still figuring out how to merge the version of themselves that thrived without him with the one that’s supposed to soar because of him.
“I think the balance is there. Obviously, we didn’t finish the season the way we wanted to as a team, but I think this week will help, going to the playoffs and knowing what’s at stake will help,” Brunson said after practice at the team’s Tarrytown training facility on Tuesday. “We do all that work during the season to get to this point to see where we are. There’s been ups and downs. Now that we’re here, it’s: What are we going to do now?
If head coach Tom Thibodeau had it his way, his team would be hitting its stride — sharp, cohesive, connected — with the playoffs on the horizon. Instead, the Knicks starters ended the regular season on a three-game skid and enter the postseason not entirely sure what version of themselves will show up.
This isn’t how the story was supposed to go. But this is the version they’ve got.
The question now isn’t whether the Knicks can find balance — it’s how they can reclaim the version of themselves that built it in the first place.
Because everything changed the night their captain went down. And everything had to change again once he came back.
TURNING POINT
The turning point was March 6. An overtime loss to the Lakers. A twisted ankle for Brunson. A suddenly uncertain stretch run for a team that had clawed its way to a 40-22 record.
After all, it wasn’t just Brunson who’d leave the rotation due to injury. Sixth man Miles McBride would go on to miss two-and-a-half weeks due to a groin injury that sidelined him on March 20. Almost a week later, the next point guard up, veteran Cam Payne, went down with an ankle injury of his own, leaving just Delon Wright (acquired at the trade deadline in the Jericho Sims deal) and rookie Tyler Kolek as the only healthy point guards left on the roster.
All the while, Thibodeau had prepared for a different challenge: an unrelenting road schedule at a grueling cadence. No team had more back-to-backs coming out of the All-Star break than the Knicks, who had four such back-to-backs over their final 12 games.
The Knicks also faced a road-heavy schedule featuring 11 away games in the first 14 out of the break. Many teams would have broken under the circumstances.
The Knicks bent close to the point of no return — back-to-back losses to two of the worst teams in basketball will do that to a title contender — but then, they bounced back.
“The challenge was to get through that, and I thought our guys did,” Thibodeau said after Tuesday’s practice. “We had an unusual April. We had guys that were out for games, and we also had an unusual schedule with three back-to-backs [in the last eight games].”
Without Brunson, the Knicks went on to win five of their next six games, seven in a nine-game stretch, all before the captain returned to the lineup.
They did it on the defensive end with Mitchell Robinson rearing into “seven-foot demon” form. They also ran offense through OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges, the pair of wings known for their defense who both shouldered bigger scoring loads with the captain out of the rotation.
Anunoby, in particular, averaged 23.1 points in March, the best scoring month of his career.
“I think that’s the nature of our league: how quickly can you adapt to things? So when you come into a new season, you always have some new faces, and how do you get everyone onto the same page? So you have to have everyone pulling together,” Thibodeau said. “And then, same thing, things happen during the course of a season, and you can lose a guy for 10 games, and then someone else comes in, and their strengths are different than the guy they’re replacing.”
Whether or not the Knicks can continue to maximize Anunoby’s newfound offensive gifts while keeping Brunson in attack mode will be a determining factor in how far New York can go in its postseason run.
GETTING READY
The plan was to get Brunson back into a scoring rhythm. Mission accomplished. Two 27-point performances against quality NBA defenses will make an All-Star feel like himself again.
There’s no question the Knicks will need their captain to score in bunches if they’re going to get by the Pistons in the first round. For the most part, Brunson has had his way with the Detroit defense: 31, 36 and 36-point performances through their first three meetings of the season, then 15 in the April 10 loss on the road.
Brunson looked like himself. The Knicks, however, did not resemble the same team that kept the ship afloat with the captain off the deck.
Anunoby scored 32 in Brunson’s first game back. He shot below 40 percent from the field in each of his last two games with the captain back and did nor register more than 15 points in either.
Bridges, too, found a scoring rhythm with Brunson out of the rotation: He averaged 19.5 points in March and scored 20-plus five times in an eight-game span leading into Brunson’s return.
Bridges tallied just 14 points against the Celtics and 17 points against both the Cavs and Pistons.
“Obviously we want Jalen out there, so that makes us a different team,” said Thibodeau. “And we’ve got to get re-acclimated to that, but that’s the challenge of the entire league.”
The Knicks have just days to sharpen before hosting the Pistons in Game 1 of the No. 3 vs. No. 6 East first-round series on Saturday.
Brunson’s rhythm is back — but so are the stakes. He can’t push the Knicks to new heights by himself, and with the help he’s got in the starting lineup, the captain doesn’t need to shoulder the responsibility alone.
The Knicks have the talent. They have a superstar guard, an all-world big man, two of the premier two-way wings in the league, and a human wrecking ball that is Josh Hart playing full speed for 48 minutes.
To maximize their potential, the Knicks will need to strike the right balance. That means getting all their weapons firing on all cylinders, not just their biggest gun.
“We’ve got days now where we can definitely get work in. Also these last couple of games have been great for [Jalen] to get that rhythm back and do what he does best,” said Karl-Anthony Towns. “Just continue to work. We’ve done a lot of things this year with each other and as a team, so just building on that.”
Continue reading...
