Knicks-Magic Reaction: Jalen Brunson TORCHES defense and cements New York as top East team

Knicks-Magic Reaction: Jalen Brunson TORCHES defense and cements New York as top East team

Uh just a really impressive performance from the Knicks offense in every conceivable way. Started with their defense to transition attack. It was one of their better transition games of the season. Constantly running their lanes and throwing kick aheads and beating the Magic down the floor. They had 32 transition points in this game. And that’s always been when the Knicks are at their best. We talked about this last year, too. Like they were relatively low volume last year, but they were the second most efficient transition offense in the league last year according to Synergy when they did run the floor. So just ticking up the volume this year has helped. And this season they’re ninth in transition points per game. And then in the half court, honestly, Jaylen Brunson just cooked him every single which way. He did some damage in drop coverage against like getting downhill and hitting little floaters uh or like Wendell Carter Jr. when he would switch out onto him. He got him a couple times, but he was like torching the Magic Guards all over the floor. One of the big things he was doing that was killing both Jaylen Suggs, Anthony, and Anthony Black was rejecting screens. This is a little basic like fundamental basketball thing. If you’re a ball handler at any level, this is a good lesson for you to learn. When guards are chasing over the top of screens, there’s a basic footwork that they use, right? So like they if I’m like dribbling at a ball screen and let’s say the ball screen’s on my right-handed side and I’m in a high hesitation, like I’m going to the right and I’m getting close to the screen, the on ball defender is going to begin a series of like footwork to deal with the screen. And in a lot of cases, that’s going to be getting that top foot, your left foot in this case, if you’re chasing a right-handed player over a screen going to the right. You’re going to get that left foot over the top of the top foot of the screener so that you can sidle up along, keep chesting up the guard, and try to beat him over the top of the screen, right? Or at the very least to chase him over the top, right? So that you can stay attached and apply that back pressure, which is such a fundamental part of drop coverage defense, right? But a lot of times what what you can do in that situation is catch them as they’re starting to prep to go over the screen by snatching back across your body. And Jaylen Brunson I I think got black with this twice and he got Jaylen Suggs with it once. But he just sits with that hand up in that the ball up in that right-handed hesitation and then as soon as that defender starts to kind of bail on him to prep for the screen, he just snatch crosses back across his body to his left hand. And then it’s like a double whammy because not only do you shed the on ball defender, but the screen defender, the guy who’s defending the screener, he’s coming up to the level or at least up into like somewhere preparing for a drop coverage on the opposite side of the screen. So when you get downhill on that side, you can find some real driving lanes. And Jaylen was getting to the basket easy with that kind of stuff. Did a ton of damage to Anthony Black. I didn’t think Anthony Black, as much I’m a big Anthony Black believer, I just didn’t think he had a particularly good defensive game against Brunson. He kept getting up out of his stance and like kind of giving natural angles and Brunson was just absolutely killing him in this one. And then if he ever got Tristan Dilva or Desmond Bane, his eyes lit up or uh um uh uh the Taius Jones was the other guy that he was get. Anytime he got any of those guys, his eyes just lit up and he just killed those guys in ISO quickly. But he did a lot of damage to Suggs and Anthony Black in this one. 40 points on 16 for 27 shooting. Just a remarkable season from Jaylen Brunson. Actually his highest per minute scoring rate of his career if you take his scoring rate at per 36 minutes. It’s the highest mark of his entire career and he’s doing it on over 60% true shooting. Really impressive stuff there. Carl Anthony Towns just torched Wendell Carter Jr. Kind of that combination of like the jump shot and his face up footwork. He was just getting easy drives on Wendell all night long. He would just kind of turn and face and he’d just look at the rim with the ball in the pocket and that would get We Wendell to step up too much. He got him with a jab step out of the left corner and got a big dunk. He had two big drives on him uh in the fourth quarter where he just ripped through to his right. just the cat just puts your bigs in those weird positions where they have to guard in space and cat is just such a gifted driver of the basketball when his shot is like causing that sort of of you know kind of antsy def defense from those bigger centers that don’t know how to guard out on the perimeter. He absolutely torched Wendell Carter Jr. in this game. So many little wrinkles in the Knicks offense tonight like the Carl Anthony Towns Male Bridges twoman game was was killing it. Cat had one where he threw this beautiful wraparound pass as as as as male was cutting off of him off of the right elbow early in the game. They ran a ball screen where uh Bridges threw a beautiful little lob pass to Cat right there in the lane. We saw a lot of ball screens between Josh Hart and Mitchell Robinson that were getting some good looks too. Kind of a random little wrinkle in their bench units. They have so many little bits of offball movement that help make things easier for them. Like there was a play where OG and Anobi got a wideopen three in the right corner where at the beginning of the possession OG’s in the left corner, Male’s in the right corner. They run action out top and the two guys just decide to swap. They’re just like, you know what, rather than just stand still, why don’t we just cross along the baseline? And so the two of them just exed along the baseline and and the two Magic defenders were caught ball watching and OG Anobi runs out to the right corner. He’s wide open. and he ends up hitting a three. And just all of that extra ball movement, all that extra uh those transition pushes, the little bit of like, you know, uh motion and variety they’ve added to their offense. And then honestly, I think they’re starting to benefit from the continuity as well, just from how long those guys have all been playing together. They’re just playing at a really, really high level. Five straight wins for the Knicks now. Sole possession of the second seed in the East. And an offensive rating of 122, which is now the second best offensive rating in the entire NBA, just behind the Denver Nuggets. And now a date with the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday night, which should be a fun one. And I would imagine at that point Victor Wmanyama will be at a little bit higher minutes total. on the Magic front real quickly before we get out of here. They looked really good when Jaylen Suggs was moving well and scoring the ball well. Um that combo of him and Desmond Bane together was really causing problems for the Knicks defense just because they were both getting some pretty good like pick and roll looks against like traditional kind of drop coverage type of looks. But then when Jaylen Suggs started to like favor that groin injury and he started losing the ability to move, that’s where Paulo being so out of rhythm became a problem because then it was just like only Desmond Bane that really could create anything and it kind of looked like a void of offensive talent at that point. And Paulo is just really far from the best version of himself right now. Like he’s very out of shape, looks out of rhythm. Every jumper was short off the front of the rim, even some of his closer ones to the basket. And they just got so many open looks from three. It kind of reminded me of some of those Magic playoff runs where they just were getting good looks from three and couldn’t knock him down. And you know, Anthony Black is the main guy I’m looking at there. Like I’m a big Anthony Black believer. Uh but he’s the biggest thing standing between him being just like an exciting young player and like a foundational piece for this team is the stuff that you know Jaylen Suggs does when he’s at his best, which is just being a more reliable uh catch and shoot shooter. But good showing overall from the Magic in this tournament. They just have to figure out a way to stay healthy. One of the problems is all these guys that are hurt for them are guys that have a history of getting hurt. Fron has been hurt before. Paulo’s been hurt before. Jaylen Suggs seems to break down every time he starts playing good basketball and he’s had a couple good games in a row and here goes another groin injury, right? And so kind of a a depressing end to it in that sense. But I am still the believer in this Magic team. They just need to get healthy and they need a couple of guys to pop as shooters and this thing can come together and they can be a dangerous team. Uh but really excited for Nick’s Spurs on Tuesday night. Uh, I’m not 100% sure what our schedule is right now, but I would assume we’re going live that night. So, for right now, I just plan on us going live on YouTube after the final buzzer of that game on Tuesday night. That’s all I have for tonight, guys. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. What a fun night of basketball. That was one of those cool moments for us NBA fans where you can feel like the beginning of something special there with a rivalry between the Thunder and the Spurs. It’s going to be a fun one. Everybody, enjoy your Sunday. We’ll be back on Monday morning with our typical power rankings episode. Should see a couple teams moving around there. Should be fun. I will see you guys then.

Jason reacts to the New York Knicks beating the Orlando Magic in the NBA Cup semifinal, advancing to play the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday. He breaks down Jalen Brunson consistently beat Orlando’s defenders and led them to a win.

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