The New York Knicks lost by one point to the Atlanta Hawks in Game 3 of their first-round series on Thursday, their second straight one-point defeat, and their final two possessions ended the same way too: a Jalen Brunson airball and a Jalen Brunson turnover.
That is the reality Mike Brown walked into when he was brought in to give the Knicks new offensive juice and to make better use of Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges. Instead, Brunson remains the center of everything, the ball in his hands so often that the offense can still look like a one-man system when the game gets tight.
Brown’s problem is not hard to see. Brunson likes to hold onto the ball and dribble into a jumper, and in Game 3 he took 40 dribbles into a double-team. That is a style that can carry a team for stretches, but it also makes the end of games predictable when defenses know exactly who the next shot is likely to belong to.
The bigger question is whether Brown can change that before the series gets away from New York. He was hired for a reason: to bring fresh movement, cleaner spacing and a more convincing role for the Knicks’ other scorers. But Thursday showed how little room there is for theory in the playoffs, where one possession can decide everything and the Knicks have now lost two straight games by a single point.
The twist is that this was never only Tom Thibodeau’s problem. Brunson’s ball-dominant approach has followed the Knicks into Brown’s era, which means the new coach is already being asked to solve a roster that still defaults to its point guard when the pressure rises. For Brown, the task is no longer about installing ideas. It is about proving he can make them matter before another late possession goes the wrong way.
