NEW YORK — The New York Knicks are now two victories away from reaching their first NBA Finals in 27 years.
The Knicks handled the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday, May 21 in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals, 109-93, and they unlocked a different way to win: it was role players who carried the day.
All five New York starters hit double-figures in scoring, with Josh Hart, who had struggled earlier this postseason, scoring a team-high 26 points. Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges each scored 19, with Brunson notching a playoff career-high 14 assists. Karl-Anthony Towns added 18.
Here are takeaways from Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals:
In a dangerous sign for Cleveland, the Knicks are finding different ways to win
Jalen Brunson was a perfect example of that. After igniting in Game 1 for 38 points, the Cavaliers threw double-teams at him Thursday night, determined to make anyone but Brunson beat them.
It didn’t work.
Brunson responded with calm and poise and facilitated the offense, dishing out a playoff career-high 14 assists. Some of that was by default; in the first half, his shot wasn’t dropping, and he headed into intermission just 1-of-6, with 2 points. At that point, however, he already did have 5 assists.
Credit New York’s role players — Josh Hart chief among them — for draining shots when the ball found them, but Brunson masterfully leveraged Cleveland’s added pressure into easier offense for his teammates. The Cavaliers even resorted to face-guarding Brunson in the second half the full 94 feet of the court.
“If you don’t send a second guy at (Brunson), he’s got a pretty good chance at scoring it,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said after the game. “If you send the second guy at him, he’s going to make the game easier for his teammates. He’s going to find them. They just have to step up and make shots.
“MVP candidate like Jalen is, you gotta make the game easier for everybody else.”
And once New York’s role players started hitting those shots, that only spaced the floor better for Brunson to take over. In the second half, he shot 6-of-10 for 17 points, while adding 9 assists.
The most positive thing for the Knicks is that this adjustment seemingly came up on the fly, when the Cavaliers tried those tweaks in coverages, all of which shows that New York is capable of outmaneuvering Cleveland.
“I think it’s an advantage for us learning how to play differently,” Brunson told reporters after the game. “There’s going to be times when one game plan is going to be different than the next. Being able to adjust and learn on the fly and adjust on the fly is something that we need to continue to get better at, but I think we’ve been doing a great job of it. I think we just need to continue to be open to figure out how we can win the next game.”
The Cavaliers have no answers when New York goes on runs
In Game 1, it was a 30-8 blitz in the fourth quarter. Thursday night, it was 18 unanswered in the third. Either way, through two games in the Eastern Conference finals, the Cavs have no blueprint to halt these explosive Knicks runs.
They have coincided with cold stretches from Cleveland’s offense, but Knicks coach Mike Brown spoke after the game about destabilizing the Cavalier defense with pace.
The Cavaliers cross-match on defense, which means that they have specific defensive assignments for each player. The issue that can come up is when a team likes to get out into open space in transition, which can force Cavaliers players to scramble to find their man. During that third quarter run, the Knicks exploited that.
“We have to play fast so we’re not going against a set defense all the time,” Brown said. “If you’re a team that cross matches, and you get out in transition, it’s going to be hard for you to find the right bodies. That’s how we’re going to have to play. We’re going to have to play fast versus their cross matches to see if we can get something early in transition.”
How can the Cavaliers combat that? It helps, for one, to make shots. Cleveland shot just 38.8% from the field Thursday night. But the Cavaliers need to be hyper-disciplined in getting back to slow New York down; they need to avoid complaining to officials if they think they’ve been fouled and they need to sprint back to their assignments.
It’s easier said than done, especially when considering the residual fatigue the Cavaliers might be feeling after needing a pair of seven-game series to get here.
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The Cleveland bench, at some point, needs to show up
With the length that the Knicks have at wing, it makes it difficult at times for Donovan Mitchell and James Harden to score. Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said he was pleased with the process that generated Cleveland’s shots and complimented the team’s shot selection. The issue was that they just didn’t fall.
A lot of that came from the bench, which scored just 17 points on 5-of-24 shooting (20.8%) before Atkinson conceded the game and emptied the bench with 1:15 left.
“At the end of the day, you’ve got to put the ball in the hole,” Atkinson said. “Tonight we didn’t.”
Max Strus and Sam Merrill, Cleveland’s two snipers, shot just 1-of-11 (9.1%) from 3-point range.
Poor shooting nights happen in the NBA. The Cavaliers simply cannot afford another one like this.
The series now shifts to Cleveland, where the Cavaliers are 6-1 this postseason. Perhaps that might be the spark that gets the Cavs bench going in a must-win Game 3 on Saturday night.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Knicks vs Cavaliers Game 2 takeaways as New York grabs 2-0 series lead
