Jalen Brunson, Knicks need to start faster in first quarter
New York Knicks' Jalen Brunson, center, drives to the basket between Boston Celtics' Derrick White, left, and Jayson Tatum, right, during the first half of Game 3 of an NBA basketball second-round playoff series, Saturday, May 10, 2025, in New York. Credit: AP/Pamela Smith
It’s understandable to focus on the final shots when the subject is Jalen Brunson. He recently was named the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year, an award given for the final minutes, not the first.
But as the Knicks entered Game 4 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Celtics on Monday night, it was the start of the game that might be the more telling minutes. While we all remember Brunson’s series-clinching three-pointer to beat the Pistons in Game 6 of the first-round series, it was in the first quarter of that game when he made it clear that he was taking over, shooting 7-for-9 for 15 points.
In the first three games against the Celtics, though, Brunson was a combined 4-for-14 for 10 points in the first quarters. Overall, he has shot 38.5% from the floor in the series and still, the Knicks managed to take two of the first three games — in no small part because of his late-game heroics.
After the disappointment of Saturday’s Game 3 loss, though, the Knicks — and Brunson — know slow starts are not something they can accept.
“We had good looks, but we also had a lot of hesitation on our part,” Brunson said Monday morning after the Knicks’ shootaround. “Just make sure we’re ready to go, step into them with confidence. And just trust our process and we’ve got to live with the results. We should have the confidence.”
The Knicks should have confidence, but they should have had it Saturday, too — unless they had too much, and after winning the first two games at Boston’s TD Garden, believed they didn’t have to bring every bit of fire and effort.
That is never a problem for Brunson, and really not for any player on a Tom Thibodeau-coached team, which made the clear lack of urgency to the naked eye hard to understand.
Getting off to a good start may be just the first step, but as evidenced by Indiana’s Game 4 demolition of Cleveland on Sunday night, the ferocity of a start can take the life out of the opposition — and it certainly makes it easier than spotting a team as good as Boston a 20-point lead in the first two games (and a 31-point lead in Game 3).
“Readiness to play, urgency,” Thibodeau said of the keys to a better start. “Obviously, you’d rather play with the lead. So I think being in attack mode and aggressive on both sides of the ball, I think that’s huge.”
The Knicks have relied on Brunson to set the pace so many times, but as seen across the league, the postseason has been a hard road for star scorers, from Brunson to the Celtics’ pair of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and even Denver’s Nikola Jokic.
It could be attention to detail by coaches and defenders in the postseason or perhaps the looser officiating that has allowed more physical play and, in the case of Brunson, contending with waves of elite defenders placed in front of him.
“I think that tends to be the case,” Thibodeau said. “And any time you’re putting more than one onto the ball, that means other guys are going to be open; you’re weighing how much are you going to commit to that? And then does that open things up for other players. And that’s what great players do. They’re going to put pressure on you. And then the challenge that you have is if you’re committing the second defender to him, also getting back to bodies once that puts you in rotation.”
“He’s a great player,” Boston coach Joe Mazzulla said of Brunson. “He’s gonna find shots. He’s gonna find opportunities to really impact the game throughout the entire game, but we just trust our individual defenders and our help behind them. I think Jrue [Holiday] has done a great job on him, I think Derrick [White] and Payton [Pritchard] have done a good job, I think Al [Horford’s] been good on him. So we just try to trust our individual defenders, trust the help behind, and when and if you need to make adjustments, you try to do that as quickly as possible.”
This is all talk for analysts, though. There was no doubt how Brunson would approach Game 4 — just like every game.
“I mean, every game is a must-win,” he said. “Every game is a critical game in the playoffs. It doesn’t matter what game it is. Every game is a must-win or a critical game.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
