Knicks Notes: Impact of Jalen Brunson’s injury; Mike Brown says there’s no excuse for loss to Magic

Mike Brown thought the Knicks got their “a—es” kicked by the Magic on Wednesday. But that wasn’t the worst thing to happen to Brown’s team.  

Late Wednesday, Jalen Brunson was leaving the locker room in a protective boot and on crutches. A reporter from The Athletic saw Brunson leaving the locker room in the boot and crutches. A league source confirmed that Brunson did indeed leave The Garden on crutches with his right foot in a boot.  

Brunson rolled his ankle with 1:52 to go in the game. We don’t know the specific injury or the severity of the injury, but the Knicks left MSG knowing that Brunson had suffered a legitimate injury. 

Oftentimes, you don’t know the true severity of an injury until the player wakes up the next morning. Maybe Brunson wakes up on Thursday feeling great. But he left Wednesday’s game like a player who knew he was hurt. Shortly after Brunson turned his ankle, he intentionally fouled Jalen Suggs to stop the game. (The Knicks trailed Orlando by 15 at the time.) Rather than going back to the Knicks bench, Brunson went directly to the Knicks locker room. 

KNICKS WITHOUT BRUNSON

If Brunson is out – and it’s safe to assume that he’ll miss Friday’s game against Miami, at a minimum – what do the Knicks do?

I assume they’d go with Miles McBride at point guard. Brown has been creative with his lineups/rotations early in the season. So maybe he goes in a different direction. 

Regardless of who is in or out of the starting lineup, the Knicks have a lot to clean up ahead of their matchup with the Heat. 

TOO MUCH TALKING TO REFS

Orlando neutralized the Knicks on the boards. They were the aggressor for much of the night, shooting ten more free throws than the Knicks. Brown didn’t seem to have an issue with how the game was called. He was instead disappointed in how his team engaged with the refs. 

“In the first half, everything that happened on the court we blamed on the officials. And that was disappointing to see because we were the culprits of a lot of stuff that happened out on the floor,” Brown said. “Six of their first eight points came from the free throw line and we fouled them. I couldn’t even use a challenge because we were fouling. If one of our keys is to play physical without fouling, but our first six points, first three or four possessions that they had, start at the free throw line, then we’re not giving ourselves a chance and we’re letting them get comfortable with the way that they play.”

The Magic took 33 free throws; the Knicks had 23 attempts from the line. Brown felt the Knicks didn’t crash the offensive glass as well as they should have. Usually, if you don’t crash the offensive glass, you can get back and defend well in transition. That wasn’t the case for the Knicks on Wednesday. 

“Shot went up and everybody just watched and then jogged back,” Brown said. “…. The way we chart it, they still scored 33 fast break points against us for the game.”

Brown obviously didn’t like his team’s approach on the board. But he was more bothered by the Knicks’ reaction to the refs. 

“I personally think that it doesn’t matter how the game is being called. If we’re locked in and we’re playing like we’re capable of, we don’t need to rely not eh officials making this call or that call,” Brown said. “Our focus in that area was not where it should have been.”

Mikal Bridges agreed with Brown’s assessment. 

“Got to leave the refs alone. Even if there’s fouls or something, everybody makes mistakes,” Bridges said. “Just got to, let it go and bring energy to the other end.”

BIG MINUTES FOR LANDRY

Landry Shamet was the first sub off the bench on Wednesday. He was also on the floor to close the game. In all, Shamet played 27 minutes – the most of any Knick reserve. Josh Hart played 18 minutes.

Brown went with Mitchell Robinson in the starting lineup on Wednesday and had Miles McBride in over Bridges to close the game.

“Yeah, I was just trying to spark something defensively, offensively. Deuce hit a couple threes. I thought he was pretty good defensively. Same with Landry; I thought he was pretty good defensively; he hit a couple of shots,” Brown said. “So I was just trying to go with, find the combination that I thought could possibly get it done on both ends. Just searching.”

Brown clearly isn’t afraid to try different combinations of players as he feels things out with his team.

NO EXCUSES

Brown was asked after the game if the Knicks were tired on Wednesday because it was the second game of a back-to-back.

“Nah, we’re a no-excuse team and if we’re a no-excuse team, we’ve gotta go play the right way as best we can and not lay the blame any place else except square on us,” the coach said. “So it doesn’t matter if we play three games in a row, we’ve gotta go figure it out, and if we can’t, maybe I need to go deeper into the bench and play guys lesser minutes. Maybe that’s where I can help them, but we can’t sit here and say. ‘We played last night and they did this.’ No, go win the game, play the right way, leave it on the floor, and if you leave it on the floor the right way, you’re not gonna win them all, then you’ll take an L and move onto the next one. I just didn’t think we did a great job doing what we’re supposed to do to set the tone, especially at the beginning of the game.”

The coach also felt the Knicks didn’t handle the Magic’s attempts to get a bigger player matched up with a Knicks guard on their offensive possessions.

“When that happened, our smaller guys did not do their work early. What I mean by that is that they let the bigger guy walk them – or run them – all the way down to the charge line (near the basket) and then we tried to start fighting,” Brown said. “And one of our main rules is if you’re guarding a bigger guy, you’ve gotta stand him up; at least at the top of the key. We didn’t do that.”

The coach also felt the Knicks didn’t do enough to combat the mismatches when guarding Orlando’s pick-and-roll.

“We were getting cracked on the pick and roll – or the DHO (dribble hand off) because we weren’t up into the ball,” the coach said. “So our big ended up taking the ball and they ended up rolling us to the post and we didn’t do a good job recognizing it and trying to switch as they rolled a small down to the post.”

BRUNSON OFF THE BALL

Before the game, Brown was asked if he uses Steph Curry as a model in any way for how Brunson plays off the ball.

Brown, who coached Curry as an assistant in Golden State, said that he has used Curry as a template for his own point guards.

“I always felt that if I every had a team, I don’t care what my point guard is like, I’m going to try to get him off the ball so that he’s comfortable with it during the regular season and then come playoff time, teams can’t sit on it and say, he’s dominant in the pick-and-roll so let’s keeping it out of his hands,” the coach said. “Now you got to defend him in a lot of different ways. Not only that, it’ll be hard to just get up and deny him,  bully him, because he’s not just going back to get the ball every time. If the defense wants to play you this way, go to the corner. The ball will find you if we’re moving and spacing the right way. That’s what I did with (De’Aaron Fox in Sacramento). He’s a pick-and-roll dominant guy, ball in his hands. And that’s what I’m trying to do with Jalen.”

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