Without Brunson, Knicks have awful shooting night in loss to Hawks at MSG
Knicks center Jericho Sims fights for a rebound against Hawks forward Bruno Fernando during the first quarter at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday. Credit: Brad Penner
It was easy to imagine the moments. The time when Jalen Brunson would calmly work his way into the lane and come up with just the shot the Knicks needed. The offensive sets where Julius Randle would bully his way to the rim or the defensive stop for OG Anunoby or Mitchell Robinson when the Knicks desperately needed it.
But that is all it was Tuesday night: a figment of their imagination as the Knicks were without any of those players and despite a gritty, hard-nosed effort, just could not pull off a second straight unlikely victory, falling to the Atlanta Hawks, 116-100, at Madison Square Garden.
The Knicks have lost eight of 11.
Brunson was ruled out with the left knee contusion that sidelined him for all but 47 seconds Sunday. The Knicks seemed to avoid a frightening situation as Brunson underwent an MRI Monday when the team returned to New York and like the X-rays, it came back clean.
“He’s feeling better. Just not quite there yet,” coach Tom Thibodeau said. “Just when he’s ready to go, he goes. In the meantime, just like what we did the last game. Deuce [McBride] get in there, get the job done. We’ve got Alec [Burks]. So we’ve got more than enough.
“I think the same holds true for all. You don’t want to see any of your players get hurt. I know the commitment that our guys have made, the sacrifices they’ve made. Obviously you want to be at full strength. But injuries are part of the game and it’s ‘How quickly can we adapt as a team?’ That’s the challenge that we face.”
The Knicks weren’t up to it against a Hawks team without Trae Young, who underwent surgery on his hand last month. The Knicks held onto a tie for fourth place in the East despite the loss. Orlando pulled even with a win over Charlotte, but Philadelphia remained one-half game back after losing in Brooklyn.
Trailing by as many 22 early, the Knicks endured a brutal shooting night with Donte DiVincenzo just 5-for-17 from beyond the arc (7-for-24 overall) — and much of that coming with what seemed like a hot streak after he began the night 1-for-10 from three. McBride had 11 points and a highlight-reel dunk in Brunson’s place, logging 46 minutes, but it wasn’t enough as the Knicks hit a wall after battling back all night.
The Knicks finished 16-for-52 from three-point range.
“We’re doing everything we can,” McBride said. “We’re doing as much as we can recovery-wise, the guys that are playing big minutes, and working on the chemistry — guys coming in and out. It’s tough but you’ve gotta keep on moving forward.”
“The margin for error is small,” Josh Hart added. “Just with all the guys we have out, we can’t have those slow starts and expend so much energy trying to get back into the game.”
The Knicks started the game miserably, scoring only 15 points in the first quarter and trailing the Hawks by 18. The deficit grew to as many as 22 before they began to chip away — no easy task when the shots just weren’t falling — and cut the halftime deficit to 61-50.
The shooting was still erratic at times, but the Knicks kept working their way back into the game. When Hart fed a cutting Bojan Bogdanovic for a layup with 2:17 left in the third quarter the margin was just two. Hart then grabbed a defensive rebound on a Jalen Johnson miss and went coast-to-coast for a layup to tie it with 1:47 left in the quarter. But Atlanta pushed back for an 83-78 lead entering the fourth quarter.
The Knicks never took a lead. After giving up the last five points of the third, the Knicks fell behind by double digits again in the fourth quarter. The uphill climb was just too much for them to complete with the shorthanded roster.
McBride played 47 minutes, 13 seconds in place of Brunson Sunday and followed that with just a brief first-quarter break on this night, but he had no complaints for the workload.
That is a huge part of the message that Thibodeau imparts on his teams. It’s a next-man-up mentality and an insistence that there is enough talent in the locker room to get the job done even when it’s someone like Brunson who is sidelined, along with Randle, Anunoby and Robinson.
“Honestly, I mean, obviously he’s an All-Star player so of course it’s going to feel different,” McBride said. “You can’t think about it like that. You can’t go into a game thinking man down. You’ve got to go in thinking we’ve got everything we need.”
McBride didn’t come out of the game once he entered Sunday and got just a quick two-minute breather Tuesday — all while chasing Darius Garland around the court Sunday and then doing it again with Dejounte Murray Tuesday.
“I don’t even think about it,” McBride said. “This is what I’ve wanted, to be guarding the best player and to be playing point guard at a high level. This is what I’ve wanted my whole life. So I’ve done whatever I can to prepare for it.”
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.
