Mike Brown’s attempt to increase the amount of time Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns spend together on the floor is, in many ways, admirable. And it’s definitely a harbinger of hope for the duo’s partnership. The problem is, the New York Knicks aren’t built for no-star stretches—not consistently anyway. 

And it’s coming back to haunt them in the playoffs.

The Knicks knew all this entering this season. Tyler Kolek had a few shining moments, but wasn’t ready. Deuce McBride and Jordan Clarkson are not hard-wired to run the offense without another primary ball-handler on the floor. Malcolm Brogdon was at one point favored to make the roster largely to help fill this void, and ended up retiring. That left New York with nothing and no one to meaningfully, consistently facilitate zero-star stretches.

Nothing changed ahead of the trade deadline. Yet, for all the talk about how the Knicks needed a backup floor general, they acquired Jose Alvarado—an undersized defensive pest who’s easy to love, and who might even need more playing time against the Atlanta Hawks, but who’s not an offensive organizer capable of regularly directing the offense. 

It’s on Brown to react accordingly. Whether he will is a separate matter.

Mike Brown needs to walk back the Brunson-KAT minutes

Following a Game 2 loss in which the Knicks melted away down the stretch, Brown sounded like someone slightly disconnected from reality, suggesting that the team didn’t crumble because of those no-star minutes. 

This is to some extent accurate. New York had other opportunities to win the game, and a timeout mishap for which Brown is responsible now looms large. But his assertion about the no-JB-or-KAT lineups isn’t true.

Though the Knicks were a plus-one during those stretches in Game 1, they lost the no-star minutes by seven points in Game 2—a huge deal when we’re talking about a one-point margin overall. 

What’s more, this isn’t an anomaly. It’s standard fare. Across both the regular season and playoffs, New York has lost the 492 total minutes it’s played without both KAT and JB by 37 points.

Not at all shockingly, the offense is to blame. The Knicks are posting under 1.07 points per possession during these stretches—the equivalent of the NBA’s worst attack. As much as Brown may believe his two best players are most dialed into one another when they log more time together, New York doesn’t have the personnel to avoid staggering them.

The Knicks should have swung bigger at the trade deadline

Granted, it didn’t have to be this way. The Knicks could have tried acquiring someone to help them scrape by during these no-Brunson-no-Towns stretches to start the second and fourth quarters.

Alvarado was never going to be the answer. If the front office felt differently, they need a big ol’ reality check. The offense has actually gotten worse when Alvarado is on the court without JB or KAT.

This isn’t to say, explicitly, acquiring the Brooklyn native was a disaster. The Knicks didn’t give up too much to land him, and the order of operations to get him included wiping away the Guerschon Yabusele mistake from over the offseason.

Still, if the goal was to maximize Brunson and Towns’ time together, they needed to be prowling the market for more of a playmaker. Limited assets and all, they could have rivaled what Minnesota gave up for Ayo Dosunmu. Pushing harder for Mike Conley off the buyout market might’ve done more for the offense than we’re watching now. Ditto for signing the now-retired Chris Paul.

No, a perfect and realistic solution wasn’t in plain sight. A better one than the Knicks have now might’ve been. We’ll never know. In the absence of one, though, they must abandon attempts to tread water without KAT or JB on the court. Their playoff fate just might depend on it.

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