Game 2 between the Knicks and 76ers on Wednesday night in Madison Square Garden was not a pretty game. At times, it was a downright ugly game with 43 fouls called, 31 turnovers, one flagrant foul, and one technical foul. Yet, when the final whistle blew, the Knicks had secured a hard-fought 108-102 win to secure a 2-0 series lead.
In many ways, this was not a game the Knicks should have won. They shot just 27% from beyond the arc, while the 76ers shot 38%. Jalen Brunson was only 9-for-21 from the field for 26 points with three turnovers. Foul trouble limited Karl-Anthony Towns to just eight minutes in the first half and 27 minutes in the game, and OG Anunoby seemed to get hurt with three minutes left and the Knicks up by six.
At most points in the regular season, that would have been enough to cause the Knicks to lose focus and let the game slip away, but not the playoff version of the Knicks.
Something happened to the Knicks after their Game 3 loss to the Hawks in round one of the playoffs. Maybe being down in the series finally crystallized how quickly this season could be over. Maybe they got a sense of the failed promise it would leave in its wake. Maybe they were just slow in adjusting to the elevated pace and physicality of the playoffs.
Whatever it is, something woke up inside the Knicks after that game, and this simply hasn’t been the same team since. It’s not just that they’ve won five games in a row. It’s not just that they’ve posted two of the most lopsided wins in playoff history. It’s that no matter what the opposition throws at them, they’ve been able to adjust their offensive approach and find a way to attack a different weakness.
On Wednesday, the Knicks had to adjust to a version of the 76ers that was operating at a faster, more frenetic pace. With Joel Embiid forced to miss Game 2 with ankle and hip injuries, the 76ers came out with their eye on fire, turning their offense fully over to their two young guards, Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe, the way they did early on in this season. From the jump, it was immediately clear that the 76ers would play faster without Embiid. On offense, they spread the Knicks out wide and didn’t worry about making sure Andre Drummond had touches. They attacked the paint off the wing and either tried to finish at the rim or kick to shooters if the Knicks closed out. It’s similar to the style of offense the Knicks have been playing during their four-game winning streak.
As a result, Philadelphia made their first six shots of the game, including three threes, and raced out to a 15-8 lead. The 76ers had just three fastbreak points in all of Game 1. They had more than that by the end of the first quarter in Game 2 and had eight at the half. However, they would also finish with eight fastbreak points.
As they’ve done throughout this winning streak, the Knicks adjusted defensively. They cut off the 76ers’ fastbreak attacks and pestered their ballhandlers with constant pressure. Tyrese Maxey had 19 points for the 76ers in the first half, but the Knicks adjusted their defense on him, sending extra defenders and trying to force the ball out of his hands. It’s a big reason that Maxey finished with 26 points and six assists, but also had six turnovers on the day.
“If you give a great player the same dose of coverage the whole game, he’s gonna tear you apart,” explained Knicks head Coach Mike Brown. “We went to some blitzing and double teaming him, and then we took it off, and we put it back on, and you have to do that. When you do blitz or when you do double team, you have to be okay, saying, okay, if other guys make shots, like some of the other guys were tonight, and you lose, then they pat them on their back, and you tell them good game, and you go to the next one.”
Early on, Paul George was one of those players making plenty of shots for the 76ers. The 36-year-old led both teams with five three-pointers on the day, including two in the first quarter when he scored eight of the 76ers’ first 10 points of the game. At the end of the third quarter, George had 19 points on 7-of-13 shooting and had knocked down five-of-11 from three. By the end of the fourth quarter, George had 19 points on 7-of-18 shooting. In fact, the 76ers as a team did not make a field goal in the final seven-plus minutes of the game.
“To hold a team like that to 12 points, and they missed some shots, we know that, but having them score 12 points in that fourth quarter, it’s huge,” said Coach Brown. “And they’re a turnover team, and part of that is we only gave up two points off our turnovers in the second half.”
While the 76ers started hot and finished the game cold, the Knicks were ice cold from beyond the arc the entire game. In the Knicks’ four-game playoff winning streak coming into Wednesday, they had made 57-of-130 (43.8%) from three-point range. At some point, the Knicks’ shots were not going to keep falling at the rate they had been. That time was tonight. They shot 2-of-7 from three in the first quarter and continued to get and miss good looks throughout the game, finishing just 7-of-26 from deep.
With their shots not falling, they needed to find another way to win.
Early on, it seemed like that would be using Towns on the perimeter to attack a much slower Drummond. The Knicks’ big man hit two quick shots and dished out two assists in the first quarter, but then the fouls came. With a little over seven minutes gone in the first quarter, Towns picked up his second foul while challenging a Quentin Grimes drive. With Mitchell Robinson out for the game with an illness, Knicks coach Mike Brown had to turn to Ariel Hukporti again. The German big man quickly picked up three fouls of his own within two minutes of entering the game, and the Knicks had to turn to late-season free agent signing Jeremy Sochan as their center.
“I’ll look at the tape and get better, more disciplined,” said Towns after the game. “I don’t want to put my team in that position again, so I’ve got to do a better job....I may not have been able to play many minutes in the first half, but I tried to use that to my advantage to have a more rested body than everybody else on the court and be a spark plus for our team coming out of halftime.”
The fouls would continue to be far too big a story in this game. In fact, there were so many fouls that Madison Square Garden PA announcer Mike Walczewski seemed to lose his voice in the second half.
At the end of the first quarter, the 76ers had been called for seven fouls, and the Knicks had six. With three minutes left in the second quarter, the 76ers still had seven fouls, and the Knicks had 14. With 2:37 left in the second quarter, Adem Bona was called for a foul for running into Josh Hart from behind, and the Madison Square Garden erupted in a cheer so loud you’d think Brunson had hit a game-winner. By the time the third quarter ended, the 76ers had been called for 19 fouls, and the Knicks had been called for 17. All in all, the number of whistles created a fragmented and stagnant game that too often disrupted the rhythm of the offenses.
That was easier to see with the Knicks.
With their offensive hub, Towns, on the bench for long periods of time, the Knicks’ fast-paced offense started to feel a little frenetic. Players cut into the same spots. Passes were hurried. Shots were frequently off-balance. Still, the Knicks keep pushing.
“Just staying poised, staying composed,” said Brunson when asked how the Knicks responded to the struggles. “Just figuring it out one play at a time, one step at a time. Not looking too far ahead. Just focusing on the details and finding out how to make the next play,”
They abandoned using a big man altogether and used Josh Hart at the five. They used that small-ball lineup to continue trying to get out in transition. They were able to string together stops and turn them into quick fastbreak layups. Their shots from beyond the arc weren’t falling, so they kept attacking the basket, cutting hard from the wings and attacking a weak middle of the 76ers’ defense. On the day, they had 15 points in transition to the 76ers’ six and 56 points in the paint to the 76ers’ 30.
With the 76ers’ defenders blitzing Brunson early in the game, and Towns on the bench in foul trouble, the Knicks spread the offense around.
“They started switching a little bit, and [Brunson] got to spots and scored a bucket,” explained Coach Brown when asked about the way Philadelphia attacked his star point guard. “Then they started blitzing, and we got it out, and other guys made plays. So they’re going to blitz, they’re going to switch, and we just have to make sure the floor is spaced correctly, and we’re able to attack regardless of the scenario.”
The Knicks did that well on Wednesday with nine players scoring in this game, and four players scoring at least 18 points. Towns would wind up with 20 points, 10 rebounds, and seven assists, continuing his per-minute dominance in the playoffs. Mikael Bridges wound up with 18 points and five rebounds, while OG Anunoby added 24 points, five rebounds, four steals, and two assists.
It was a tremendous team win for a team that has continued to rise to the occasion this postseason. It seems that their next challenge may be trying to find a way to win without Anunoby, who came up hobbled while cutting to the basket with a little over three minutes left in the game. He would collect himself and attempt a dunk on the same possession, but he quickly motioned to the bench, was taken out of the game, and headed immediately to the locker room.
“I haven’t talked to anybody. I haven’t seen anything, “said Coach Brown about Anunoby’s potential injury after the game. “He looked like he was hopping.”
“I’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” added Brunson later on. “I don’t know too much.”
While the Knicks didn’t have information about the extent of Anunoby’s injury at the end of the game, there are only two days before the teams take the court again on Friday in Philadelphia. If Anunoby isn’t out there for the Knicks, it will be a huge obstacle to overcome. The wing came into tonight’s game averaging 21 points, 7.9 rebounds, 1.6 steals, 1.1 blocks, and 1.1 assists in seven games this postseason while emerging as one of the best two-way forwards in the NBA.
For a team that has proven they can change the way they attack in order to pull out a win, playing without Anunoby may be one of the biggest adjustments the Knicks will need to make.
