NBA Gametime reacts to Jalen Brunson lead Knicks top Pistons in Gm6, advance to face Celtics in Rd 2

NBA Gametime reacts to Jalen Brunson lead Knicks top Pistons in Gm6, advance to face Celtics in Rd 2

Brunson ending the Piston season. Welcome to Playoff Central Live. That is the Hall of Famer Isaiah Thomas. That is the champion Wes Matthews. I’m Chris Miles and Zeke. Let’s go to the can you get me a bucket at the end of the game and what you saw in Jaylen Brunson because you called it. You were like, “Oh, with that guy, he’s going to score every time down.” you know, and and we talked about it before the game started, like, you know, his shot making ability is so incredible. And then it’s clutch. I mean, he hits big shots, clutch shots, tough shots. And, you know, he’s a he’s a great one-on-one player. And at the end of the game, you can’t really like play him one-on-one. I mean, you you have to show him some stunts and slide. He’s got the top clear. I mean, that’s what you know, we as point guards, right? That’s our dream to be able to go right, to be able to go left. Everybody’s on the baseline. We practice these shots every day. And you can see that was like a warm-up three for him. And the reason we had this game come down to a final shot yet again in this series was because of an 18-2 run by Detroit in the fourth quarter. You could tell they were feeling that home crowd trying to deliver the first playoff home win since 2008. They came so close. What did you make of that run in the fourth quarter? I mean, that’s what they showed all year and it’s a heartbreak for them. Um, I know those guys will learn a lot from this. I know it’s going to be a tough night. Um, because if you look at it wasn’t just this game where this happened. You know, this was game one in New York. This was uh what was it? Game four or back back in Detroit or and you play hard. You you sacrifice all year long. You sacrifice all season. You know, you want to make it to the playoffs. you make it to the playoffs and like you know there ain’t nothing like it. You know, all those 82 games is great. You know, the check is great, the travel’s great, all that is, but all you really care about is, you know, these TNT matchups, this showtime, this this this playoff basketball. So, that’s what they are about, that grittiness, that toughness. But you can see that, you know, they’re not quite they’re not there yet. Obviously, there’s too many, you know, self-inflicting wounds that um took them out of this game and this series. Good call. You know, Zeke, there’s uh history made in this game as well. Jaylen Brunson with 40 points. Ty Bernard Tied Bernard King against the Pistons for the most 40point games in Knicks franchise history in the playoffs. Can you take us through and give us some of those similarities of Jaylen Brunson? obviously a lot smaller than Bernard King, but how he’s effective in a similar way. Again, his shot making ability and and Bernard King you talk about against us on 22 shots. Jaylen Brunson, right? He scores every kind of way. I mean, he he scores inside and you can’t really play him with a smaller guard because he really is a post up player. You know, he takes you down into the lane. He’s got excellent footwork and then when you try to double team him, he’s a great passer. He’s unselfish, but he is I mean I I can’t I can’t talk glowingly enough about him because his shot making ability is just so incredible. And we talked about him being the clutch player of the year. We got it’s got to be another level for that because he’s more than clutch. I mean, he is he’s the dude, man. and and and like I said, I’m just extremely impressed with the way he can score around the basket. He can knock down the three and I mean, he’s not he tear dropping. He, you know, getting a little soft touches off the basket and that three that he shot that was all net. I don’t even think it touched the rim, you know, and he shot it and then gave you one of the whatever he do with his fingers. Well, was there there’s so much that Zeke said there, right? And and as you and I were watching the game, you kept saying to me like, “Oh, you can’t put someone his size on him.” And Zeke just said the same thing. And you look at uh JB Bigger Staff ended the game, he’s like, “Okay, our best defender, Assar Thompson, has the size to guard him and still Jaylen Brunson used a different approach.” Can you kind of take us through like the difference between when someone his size is guarding him and when a bigger player is guarding him? So, you know, like Zeke said, when Jaylen Brunson is essentially a wing, you know, in a in a small body. So, he he plays with physicality. He plays with a poise and a patience. His handle is a is very underrated. You’re not taking the ball from him, you know, necessarily. He’s got moves, he’s got wiggle, but what he’s got, he’s got very good foundation. So, when he’s got a smaller guy on him, he’s going to be able to use his aggressiveness, his strength, his shotmaking ability, his fade. He’s a natural post up type player. But what I talked about earlier when we were kind of talking about James and his his acceleration deceleration. So in that last play, like you think about football receivers, they want to know the top. Can you win at the top of your route? Can you decelerate, accelerate, separation? That’s what Jaylen Brunson did right there. He speeds you up and then immediately he can slam on the brakes better than you can slam on the brakes. He has the ball. So he has the advantage. He knows when he’s stopping. You get a young guy, talented defender in Thompson. talented defender, but Jaylen Brunson’s seen them already. You know, he’s seen players like this. He’s seen these kind of matchups. So, he’s comfortable. Like you said, one, four, five. He was comfortable that entire time. Yeah. He knows I’m going to turn it up, then I’m going to turn it off, get to my spot. You know, lefties, they like to shoot going right just like righties, we like to shoot going left cuz that’s our step back. That’s our comfort. I mean, it was effort, but at the end of the day, when you saw it was one floor, you got to go get the ball out of his hand. When they inbounded the ball and he caught it on the wing, you trapped him. You had him dead right there. They should have trapped him in that corner. And and you got to keep a guy like that on the wing. Once you let him get out top one, 14, and he can see everything. Game’s over. You did call that, Zeke, because I mean, if anyone knows, it is you wearing that number 11 and who’s going to hit the game-winning bucket. Uh Tom Tibido at the podium now. All Knicks starters played over 35 minutes and guess what? Knicks heading to the second round for second consecutive year. Just the way Thompson was defending them all night just to come back and hit that shot. What do you make of that? Yeah, and first I’d just like to uh start off congratulating the Pistons on JB and his staff did an incredible job all year long and uh they had a terrific season. Uh it was a incredibly tough series. So then uh Jaylen shot what can you say? You know timely, you know, he’s at his best when his best is needed. He’s done it all year. Uh but you know, we know we got a lot of work to do. We we talk about resilience all year long. You take an early lead, they come back. You take another lead, they come back. Just what does it say about this group that no matter how many times a team Yeah. Just, you know, hang tough, you know, persevere, get through things. uh the playoffs as you know it it’s all about you know your toughness and your discipline and so there’s going to be a lot of emotional highs and lows and you got to get through all that and you got to stay focused on the task at hand and then you got to get the job done. Uh Tom just a little bit more about Jaylen. I mean, in that quarter, he’s three for 13. And what is it about him mentally that he just I’m going to take that shot and the way he does it and executes and everything. Yeah. And I think that’s what makes him so special. And you know, and we talk about both that it’s his makeup. And often times, you know, that’s that’s where mistakes I think are made in the draft and things like that. And there’s it’s easy to see like how many points a guy scores or what physical tools tools are. But when you look at the mental tools, that’s everything. And then how how you deal with, you know, like if you miss your miss a shot, you know, he comes back the next one, he’s going to shoot it great. He may miss that one, but he’ll shoot the next one great. And just having that belief and confidence and I think uh and again, I say it all the time, it really comes from his preparation and he has a lot of poise under pressure. Uh and you know, he’s dealing with a you know, he gets a lot of attention. and he’s being trapped and he knows how to move without the ball. He’s uh obviously very clever with the ball, shifty, can get to the spots that he wants to get to. Uh but he also knows how to move without the ball. Tom, what did you see from Male especially especially tonight in terms of just his is attacking the rim. you know, I thought the the whole starting group I I think being aggressive uh getting stops and then pushing the ball and uh you know we when we did that we we scored at a pretty high rate and so those easy baskets are everything and if we can get the scoring off our defense u that really fuels the offense. Tom Tom the um you mentioned you guys had a lot of work to do. How what do you make of the um the Celtics series and you know going Well, obviously I haven’t really dug into that yet and you know I’ve watched some of the playoff games. Uh but obviously we’ll be doing a lot of work in the next couple days but our assistants and our advanced guys have been working on it for a long time. So uh then we have to get our team in and we have some days for rec recovery and preparation. They’re the defending champion. So, we know that we’re going to have to be at our best. Tom, three years in a row now you you’ve you’ve gone you’ve advanced around and before that it’s been a while for the Knicks. Is is there a sense of accomplishment at all that you this is now third year in a row? Hello. [Music] Ready up. [Applause] Note Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Good [Music] night. [Music] [Music] Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. [Music] [Music] Goodbye. How many [Music] Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. [Music] Get Goodbye, guys. Now Hello.

NBA Gametime reacts to Jalen Brunson lead Knicks top Pistons in Gm6, advance to face Celtics in Rd 2