ESPN reacts to Miami Heat beat New York Knicks 115-107; Jalen Brunson: 37 PTS; Norman Powell: 29 PTS

ESPN reacts to Miami Heat beat New York Knicks 115-107; Jalen Brunson: 37 PTS; Norman Powell: 29 PTS

Zerby. So, the Knicks attempt 54 threes, tied for the most in a single game in franchise history. The problem, Wally, they only went 15 of 54 from downtown. Hard to win when you shoot like that from deep. Get one up, Bill. Come on, join the party. I went I went in. Problem is, like you might have been, the bench was 1 for 18 from the three-point line. So, you’re not going to win a lot of games when you’re getting threes. You’re shooting 54, but you’re not making them. That’s the bottom line. There were some good open looks that I think some of the coaches will uh live with. There were also some questionable quick shots, and that’s today’s day and age in the NBA. If you’re going to play with pace, you’re going to get up 54 threes. You better be makers and not just shot takers. And tonight, the Knicks were shot takers, not enough makers. Jaylen Brunson could score whenever he wanted. He imposed his will with 37 big points, but he didn’t get much help other than that um from his other guys. Key sequence in the game. Knicks are in the third quarter late, only down one. 8281 Miami late third into the early fourth goes on 11 zip run and from then the Knicks were unable to really they mounted a little bit of a rally late, but that was a key stretch of the game. Listen, I’m impressed by this Miami team. They’re retooling uh without Jimmy Butler and no Tyler Herro coming offseason surgery, but they have some young guys. There’s six first round picks that are on this roster that they have made, homegrown first round picks that are developing. Uh Yovic didn’t shoot it well today, but he’s been shooting the ball very well. Jaime Hakez at 17 points off the bench, was outstanding. Eight for 12. All he does is run rough shot, bang people around, get people injured. This guy Fonteo, he’s been on Utah, he’s been on Detroit, but he’s playing really well in the Miami Heat uniform. These two guys off the bench, 17 and 14, respectively. They dominated uh the the the auxiliary auxiliary players and that’s one of the reasons why the Knicks took an L. Look at fast break points. Knicks want to play fast. Miami dominated that stat 31-10. You see the points off turnovers and you touched on the Knicks issues shooting off the bench. Look at the point differential off of each team’s bench. The Knicks bench, which has been really good through the first two games, outscored tonight 44-21. That was a huge factor in this game. how Miamiy’s bench while he outplayed the Knicks bench tonight. It was huge. Now, I give Mike Brown and the coaching staff a lot of respect. They’re giving the bench opportunities. I mean, the minutes Josh Hart 29 minutes, 16 minutes, Yabuselli Sham getting another consistent 15 minutes. Uh Jordan Clarkson 15 minutes. If you get 15 minutes in an NBA game, you got to produce because that’s a bulk amount of time. Those guys saw the floor both in the first half and the second half. So now they have to they have to produce when they get those type of minutes. And if you don’t produce, you’re not going to win games, especially when the Miami Heat bench produced the way they did. All right, let’s take a look at uh the bench differential because when you get outsc scored off the bench 44-21, you couple that with the three-point shooting, tough combination to win a game, especially on the road. Yeah. Well, it’s not easy to win games on the road in the NBA. It really isn’t. And you know, the Knicks have been notoriously a very good road team. They’re a very professional team, but the benches normally come out ready to play at home in front of their home fans. They get revved up. They get fired up. They feed off the energy of the crowd. They come into the game ready to go. They’re comfortable in their confines of sleeping in their own beds and shooting on their own rims and playing on their own court. And you can see there are a lot of young guys that are gaining confidence in a Miami Heat uniform. Uh especially playing at home. That was an impressive effort. The Knicks came in 2 and 0. Miami Heat said, “These are our rivals. We got to get this win. Defend home court. Without two of our superstars, one traded away and Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro. And it just goes to show you Miami culture. They know how to win basketball games thanks to Pat Riley. And they showed it tonight. We talked about Norman Powell in our pregame show. He led Miami with 29 points. We’ve touched on Jaylen Brunson’s night. He was fantastic with 37. Tonight’s thrilling moment is brought to you by FanDuel Casino. Get your thrill on. And Brunson was thrilling from start to finish tonight. Wally. Yeah, and this is what superstars do when they see his teammates don’t have it going making shots. He stepped up and tried to keep him in the ball game. The fact that the Knicks had a chance to hang around in this game is all because of JB. 14 for 26, 5 for 11 from three. Nobody could guard him. Da’Von Mitchell is known as off night. Well, sorry, not tonight, DaVon. Cuz Jaylen Brunson will torch whoever’s guarding him one-on-one. Multiple defenders just absolutely lit them up. You can tell Jaylen Brunson has come into this season 100% focused on what needs to be done in order to be a championship contender and a championship winner. He is ready to play from the jump. He is leading by example like he always has, adjusting to a new coaching staff, doing whatever they’re asking him to do and producing at a really high level. That was a big time performance tonight. Two other bright spots at least for Carl Anthony Towns. He had the foul trouble but he did grab 18 rebounds and male Bridges really efficient. Let’s take a look at Bridges Wall-E. Uh he finished the game with 20 points, seven of 11 from the floor. Made the most of his shot opportunities. No, he was he’s been great. He really has. He and it looks like the game is slowed down from Mikuel Bridges in a New York Knick uniform. He is just playing at a high level on both ends of the floor. You know, the defense is always going to be there. I’d like him to look to be a little bit more aggressive, quite honestly. I mean, 11 shots only. He needs to get more looks at the basket with the way he’s shooting the ball. He’s shooting at such a high percentage. He’s an unselfish player, so he’s never going to force. But he got to 20 points on only those 11 shots. He needs to find more looks at the basket cuz when he does get those open corner threes, and when he does get those catch and shoot opportunities, he nails them. Um, so that’s going to be, I think, a focus of it goes both ways. The team has to look for him a little bit more, but he has to think to himself, I’m too important to this team and my production and scoring is too important. I got to look to be a little bit more aggressive. made the point that Mike Brown played the guys off the bench even though they didn’t have the best nights. Yeah. Jordan Clarkson in particular, Wallally two of 11 from the floor. Gershon Yabiselli one of six from the floor. And yet Yabaselli played almost 16 minutes. Clarkson played uh almost 15 minutes. Those guys are in new digs. They’re in new uniforms. They’re in a new uh you know, new locker room, new city. And sometimes it takes a little bit of time. It’s a little bit of an adjustment. At the same time, I liked the fire I saw out of Clarkson in the fourth quarter. He kind of just said to himself, “I’m done thinking out here. I’m dealing with a whole new offense, new coaching staff, new team. I’m just going to go out there and get myself going.” That’s what he’s been his whole entire career. 15 point plus per game scorer off the bench, former sixman of the year. At some point, he’s got to stop looking around and trying to be nice to everyone and say, “I got to go be me. I got to go get buckets.” And I like the fire that I saw in the fourth quarter and the fact that he was in there quarter missed some very makeable shots. He’s going to have a game where he goes off for 30 very soon. Mentioned Cat with 18 rebounds. He struggled shooting as well. Missed, I think, his first four threes and was only two of eight in the game from downtown. Did end up with 15 points and did end up, as I mentioned earlier, with 18 rebounds. Yeah. And third straight double double. The effort’s there by all this team. You can tell they’re playing hard. They’re trying to figure things out. They’re adjusting to a new system. Carl Anthony Towns is a guy that is trying to play two different positions. He’s got a different starting center every time he sets foot out there on the floor. And that’s not easy. Um, at the same time, Cat has to make other teams guard him because, you know, Adabio can’t guard him. He’s too small. And Khalil wear when he has him on him, he’s got to take him outside and use his quickness, his shooting ability, and his ability to put the ball on the floor. Carl Anthony Towns is another guy that’s trying to figure out where when and where can I be aggressive in this offense. The players have been talking about this offense is very free. There’s a lot of freedom. There’s not a lot of play calling. So, as a result, as a player, you have to take the initiative to say, “I’m Carl Anthony Towns. I’m a multi-time all-star. I’m a multi-time AllNBA guy. I got to make sure I am ultraaggressive to help my team win.” and he’ll start to figure that out more and more as the games go along. You think 14 shots for Towns is not not enough. Not enough. Not enough. But it’s not all about the shots. Like, you know, you want to play within the team concept. At the same time, you know, Towns is a 25 and 13 guy pretty much for his whole entire career. So, he’s got to look to make those defenses really work to stop him because he is unguardable in certain matchups. He causes problems every single time out there on the floor and he’ll start to figure out when and where he can pick his spots to get the ball in the right spots and attack in this offense. All right, Wally. Monica McNut now in Miami. He’s always helped call the game on the radio on ESPN New York. Monica, we mentioned off the top the Knicks tie a franchise record taking 54 threes. Issue was they only made 15 of the 54. Gee whiz. Um, I am going to hop up from here and head over to the presser if I can catch Mike Brown because I really want to understand what is a good three moving forward in this system. And granted, I’m a shooter. Been there, done it. If you make it, it’s a good three most likely. But I thought, especially in that second half, there were opportunities where I thought maybe time and score should have been more at the front of some of the decision makers minds than it was, especially considering it was a night where it was not falling from three in the way that we saw from the first two games, guys. Um, but I think that is a big uh stat to circle and you can point to the loss largely behind that one. I don’t love the 16 turnovers and 20 points off turnovers. You went into the fourth quarter with a seven-point hole. The seven points literally came off of turnovers. You could have argued. So turnovers were also important tonight. Monica, uh, what do you think the Knicks are going to learn from this game and what do you think the coaches are going to pull out of this one in film room to improve and get ready for Milwaukee? You know, Wally, that that’s a great question because I think there were moments in the first half where I’m talking to Tyler on the broadcast and I thought the health defense looked

ESPN reacts to Miami Heat beat New York Knicks 115-107; Jalen Brunson: 37 PTS; Norman Powell: 29 PTS