NEW YORK — The best play of the New York Knicks’ postseason opener arrived quickly.
Less than five minutes into the game, Karl-Anthony Towns set a screen for Jalen Brunson. Both Atlanta Hawks defenders followed Brunson as he dribbled left. The point guard bounced a behind-the-back dish to his center, who had popped to the top of the key, beyond the 3-point arc.
Towns could have released a jumper. He once dubbed himself the best-shooting big man ever. Whether you agree with his assessment or not, he’s special enough that his commentary should be filed under the category of confident, not delusional. But instead of shooting, he went another direction.
Josh Hart’s defender rushed to Towns. Hart cut into the paint. Towns squared up as if he would rise for a 3-pointer but instead flicked a chest pass to Hart, who received the rock under the hoop, spun around and whipped a winding assist to Mikal Bridges, who nailed a triple from the right corner. It was beautiful, quick-twitch basketball, the style that the Hawks had produced far more often than they had witnessed during their end-of-season hot streak.
But this wasn’t just an important moment, one that helped the Knicks to a 113-102 victory in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series, because it immediately stamped itself onto the night’s highlight reel. It was also notable for how it happened.
Brunson brought the ball up, and Towns set a screen for his point guard, despite who was guarding him.
The Knicks were more committed to the Brunson-Towns pick-and-roll over the last week of the season. They carried that sentiment into Game 1. Once Brunson crossed half court, the only defender left to pick up Towns, a burly 7-footer, was a guard, Nickeil Alexander-Walker. And while that may sound like a mismatch (and it is in lots of ways, if only because of Towns’ and Alexander-Walker’s crushing difference in height and weight, two relatively important elements of basketball), the upper hand doesn’t go completely to the larger person.
Alexander-Walker, a pesky defender, has one advantage on Towns. It comes in the center’s habits.
There are head coaches who will splice smalls onto Towns without much care for their quality of defense. The mere existence of a smaller guy guarding the Knicks’ second-leading scorer can keep him away from the basketball. New York tends to run pick-and-rolls at the opposing team’s centers. When a wing takes Towns, the All-Star big man is less likely to screen for Brunson, turning him into a spacer who may never touch the ball. Those occasional dormant stretches, the times when Towns doesn’t take a shot for six or eight or 10 consecutive minutes, often coincide with a smaller player instead of a like-sized one guarding him.
But the Knicks made a greater effort over the final week of the regular season to force centers onto Towns. They would set cross-screens down low, which led to defenses switching defenders just before Towns arrived to lay a screen for Brunson. The question was, how might it continue come the postseason?
Despite that early-game possession, and despite Towns’ impressive performance — 25 points, eight rebounds and four assists on only 13 shots — the jury is still out.
He entered facilitation mode early, looking for cutters, such as on that hockey assist to Hart. He broke out as a scorer in the second half. He banged in a corner 3-pointer after screening for Brunson less than two minutes into the third quarter. He got to the line with gusto and made all 10 of his freebies on the night. In the final period, he drained all four of his shots — a deep, contested 3; a ferocious and-1 finish; another smooth triple; and a fast-break layup.
“We want to put him in pick-and-roll situations so he can pick-and-pop and shoot the ball or take the ball off the dribble,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “And then we also wanna put him at the elbow so he can playmake for us, because we feel like we move very well (like that).”
But the Hawks also broke out a fourth-quarter strategy that is worth monitoring.
Once Brunson subbed back into the game with 5:07 left, Atlanta moved its center, Onyeka Okongwu, who is questionable for Game 2 with right knee inflammation but defended Towns more than anyone else in Game 1, onto Hart and placed reigning Defensive Player of the Year runner-up Dyson Daniels on Towns. Daniels is an oversized guard but a guard at that, standing at 6 foot 7 and more commonly manning players of Brunson’s ilk, not Towns’. The strategy removed Towns, who was in the midst of a heater, from the offense.
According to Second Spectrum, Towns set 15 ball screens for Brunson over the first three quarters, in line with how those two rolled when their chemistry appeared to gain steam over the past couple of weeks. But they ran zero pick-and-rolls together in the fourth. With Daniels on him, the Knicks settled on Hart as Brunson’s pick-and-roll partner, choosing to bring Okongwu into the play, an understandable strategy, considering the Hawks would comfortably switch Daniels onto Brunson if he were the one on the back side of the action. Brunson is one of the sport’s greatest late-game scorers in part because he forces suboptimal defenders to switch onto him, then cooks them from there. Going at Daniels would accomplish the opposite of that.
But with Hart screening for Brunson and with Brunson’s shot uncharacteristically off-kilter, the Knicks offense went cold. Towns wasn’t anywhere near to help. Atlanta made a fake comeback, one that never had a chance given the time and spread, that shrunk a 19-point lead to eight over fewer than two minutes. The Knicks held on, but maybe the Hawks learned something in the process.
Every playoff series in NBA history, no matter how competitive the result, has gone the same way. One team makes an adjustment. The other team adjusts to that adjustment. The other team adjusts to the adjustment to the adjustment. And so on, until someone wins.
The Hawks adjusted their matchups once the result was already decided. It may have made an impact. Or maybe the Knicks just got comfortable while up big. But one thing is for certain: Atlanta will try non-bigs — Daniels, maybe Jalen Johnson — on Towns moving forward. And both Towns and the Knicks have to make sure he remains a major part of the plot.