They said Jalen Brunson wasn’t the best player on the floor in the Knicks’ first-round playoff series against the Detroit Pistons, that Cade Cunningham — because of the play-making ability at his size — would be king of the court in Round 1. The Knicks’ All-Star put that argument to rest early, packing up the Pistons in six games, ending their season with an ankle-breaking game-winner against their top defensive stopper in hostile Detroit territory.
They tried to say the same thing walking into the second round against the reigning NBA champion Boston Celtics, that Brunson’s diminutive positional size negated the skill that vaulted him to an All-Star starter status, that Jayson Tatum’s status as a reigning champ would place him atop the totem pole of players competing in the Eastern Conference semifinals between the Knicks and Celtics.
It doesn’t matter. Line them inside the lines, and the Knicks’ captain will prove why he’s the best on any of the NBA’s 30 hardwood floors.
Brunson is built for moments bigger than his 6-foot-1 frame might suggest. He fueled yet another furious Knicks rally in Game 4 against the Celtics on Monday, this time scoring 16 of his game-high 39 points to erase a 14-point deficit with New York’s first lead of the game coming in the second half.
And he’s the type of player to pick apart a steady diet of any defense. He struggled to find his footing against the Celtics through the first three games of the series: 9-of-23 in Game 1, 6-of-19 in Game 2 and 9-of-21 in Game 3 for a 38 percent clip to open the series against the defending champs. But just like he found a way against the Philadelphia 76ers and Indiana Pacers last season, and just like he found a way against Dyson Daniels’ defensive pressure during the regular season, then Amen Thompson’s individual defense in Round 1, the Knicks’ captain eventually cracked the code.
“He’s a great player, 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’s done a great job on him, I think Derrick and Payton have done a good job, I think Al’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.”
The Celtics, though, aren’t supposed to need those adjustment. This is why they pay Jrue Holiday and Derrick White All-Star level money, a total of $256 million over a four-year span to keep dynamic scoring guards like Brunson in check for a game — or a series.
Brunson averaged 27 points on 53 percent shooting from the field through four regular-season games — albeit losses — to the Celtics. He picked up where he left off on Monday, torching the Celtics one isolation possession at a time.
As two team trainers carried Tatum off the floor after a brutal lower leg injury sidelined him in the waning moments of Game 4, the Knicks’ path to the Eastern Conference Finals became clear. Th Celtics went 8-2 during the regular season in games Tatum missed, but they are ill-equipped to weather this storm from the Knicks without their All-Star starter and franchise cornerstone healthy and in action.
The Knicks’ Monday-night victory over the Celtics now puts them one game shy of their first conference finals appearance since 2000. They await the winner of the Indiana Pacers vs. Cleveland Cavaliers second-round series. The Cavaliers have played injured, and the Pacers — who boast a legitimate 11-man rotation — took advantage to seize a 3-1 series lead.
If the Pacers seal the deal with a victory in Cleveland on Tuesday, the two teams will be on pace to meet in the conference finals for a rematch of last season’s second-round playoff series.
The Knicks, of course, have to handle business against the Celtics first, and Boston will be emboldened by its own rowdy home crowd after coughing up their first two games at TD Garden.
Yet the facts remain: Kristaps Porzingis is playing with an illness, sharpshooter Sam Hauser has been out since Game 1, and now Tatum could miss the rest of the series with a devastating leg injury to end Game 4.
The Celtics have now blown double-digit leads in Games 1, 2 and 3 of this second-round series. Boston has won first quarters by 39 points against the Knicks this series — by one in Game 1, by 11 in Game 2, by 16 in Game 3 and took a 39-28 lead into the fourth quarter of Game 4.
Those strong starts are useless if the Celtics can’t hold onto the advantage.
“I didn’t know that. So I haven’t put too much thought into that,” Mazzulla said ahead of tipoff against the Knicks on Monday. “That’s important — to get off to a good start, but as you’ve seen in this series, we also have to end well. So just trying to play balanced basketball throughout is what we’re talking about the most.”
