The Knicks continued their dominance at home on Tuesday night, defeating the Grizzlies 133-120, pushing their winning streak to five games and starting the season 7-0 at MSG.
New York showed a lot of what has made them dangerous in the early going. They throttled the Grizzlies’ defense for 78 first-half points and forced 11 Memphis turnovers. If you saw the final score, you’d think it was a much closer game, and the Knicks would tell you that it shouldn’t have been.
Despite their offensive outburst in the first half, the Grizzlies outplayed them in the second, outscoring the Knicks 66-56. And first-year head coach Mike Brown brought up his team’s defensive lapses in his opening statement after Tuesday’s win.
“The first half, we did a really good job in a lot of areas…and our transition defense in the first half wasn’t great but it was ok against a team like that,” Brown said. “According to our measurements, they had 16 fastbreak points against us in the first half. The second half, we let up. We didn’t sprint back like we should have…we did not play our rules and they got layup after layup after layup against us in transition, which gave them confidence…29 fastbreak points to a team in a half is going to kill ya. Especially when you have 11 turnovers in that half. We were careless with the ball as well…Hopefully, we’ll grow from this and try to put 48 minutes in our next game because those two areas we did not do a good job of.”
The Knicks will hope to put together that full 48-minute performance on the second of their back-to-back on Wednesday against the Magic, but they wasted an opportunity for extra rest because they allowed the Grizzlies to stick around. One positive is that New York is expected to have center Mitchell Robinsonin the lineup after he sat out Tuesday due to injury management. Brown was asked about the defense and Robinson’s role in it, but the coach didn’t want that to be an excuse.
“It wasn’t about Mitch; they killed us in transition,” he said. “Give them credit because they kept fighting, but we could have had anybody on the floor, it would have been bad. We didn’t do a good job getting back, we didn’t do a good job following our rules while getting back.”
While the Knicks let Memphis hang around in the second half, the offensive performance they put on allowed them to hold on. The team scored 130-plus points in their third straight game, which is the first time that’s been done in franchise history.
Jalen Brunsonwas awesome, scoring 32 points while grabbing five rebounds and dishing 10 assists. He is now tied for third in franchise history with Stephon Marbury and Ray Williams for the most 30/10/5 performances as a Knick (five).
But even the captain wasn’t pleased with how his team finished Tuesday’s game.
“Yeah, we’re clicking (on offense), most importantly, we’ve got to finish games better,” Brunson said. “Whatever’s happening on offense, there’s going to be times when we’re not making shots and stuff. But we got to better defensively no matter what. It has to be our focus moving forward.”
Brunson says the lapses are a product of late communication or simply a lack of communication, but was encouraged by the team’s offensive production, especially in the first half.
“Ball’s moving, playing off each other, playing ball,” Brunson said. “When the ball is going in like that, it’s great to see.”
The Knicks shot 55 percent (39.3 percent from three) with 19 assists in the first two quarters. That’s a product of Brown’s offensive system that has ramped up the team’s output.
Following New York’s win over the Nets on Sunday, the team was the No. 2-ranked offense and had the league lead in made three-pointers per 100 possessions.
They will look to keep it going on Wednesday against the Magic, where they’ll look to go a perfect 8-0 at home this season.
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