Knicks need second effort to be there against Pacers, the team that eliminated them last season
Knicks guard Jalen Brunson sits on the bench in the second quarter during Game 7 of the NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Pacers on Sunday at Madison Square Garden. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
If it had been an off-Broadway production, this remake of the Knicks might have been canceled after one night.
Instead, they will make their home debut under the spotlight of Madison Square Garden on Friday night. With one failed rehearsal behind them, the eagerly expected incarnation of the franchise will take on a task that is only slightly less daunting.
Humbled by the defending champion Celtics on Tuesday night, the Knicks will host the Indiana Pacers, who led the NBA in scoring last season and knocked an injury-depleted Knicks squad out of the playoffs.
But more than figuring out the schemes of the opposition, the Knicks are intent on improving their own performance.
In Boston, they could point to missed assignments, failed defensive rotations and poor communication. But the effort also was nowhere near the hard-nosed style that marked last season’s Knicks squad before trades reshaped the roster.
“Obviously, they’re a great team,” Deuce McBride said of the Celtics after Tuesday’s 132-109 loss. “That’s championship-level basketball. For us, that was a punch in the mouth. And we got to respond.
“Obviously, it’s a long year. You can’t overreact to one game, but that’s not how you go into a year and set the tone. I think we got to make sure we get together and figure out what to do next.
“I think it just comes down to effort on defense. I feel like we could’ve made more effort plays. I feel like the first effort was there but the second and third has to get better.”
This second try at second effort is something the team certainly has heard in practice since that loss. They surrendered 29 made three-pointers (on the Celtics’ first 48 attempts, tying the NBA record for made threes with 8:54 remaining; the Knicks avoided the wrong side of history only because Boston missed its final 13 attempts).
The Pacers may not shoot from distance as much as Boston, but they run at every opportunity, and if you aren’t giving effort, it certainly will show.
Asked Thursday if he expects that second effort to be there against Indiana, Tom Thibodeau said bluntly, “Yeah, I do.”
“I don’t think there’s any possible way to look backward on what just happened,” Jalen Brunson said. “It’s going to be a challenge for us. It’s a team we lost to last year. But they have our number. We’ve just got to be ready to go.”
It’s not just fixing the flaws of the first night but also keeping the memory of how the Knicks’ season ended — a Game 7 loss to Indiana at the Garden, with Brunson having to spend the fourth quarter in the trainer’s room after breaking his right hand.
“A lot of things, yes,” he recalled. “Game 3, Indiana, I think that was a missed opportunity on our part, and then following Game 4, we didn’t show up. So how we closed out that series was not ideal, them winning four out of the last five. So that’s something I’ve thought about.
“Obviously, my hand breaking. But yeah, whenever you don’t win, you think about what you did to lose. We can talk about what could have happened if I stayed healthy or whatever, but I mean, the fact is that we lost regardless.”
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.
