INDIANAPOLIS — Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau doesn’t believe Jalen Brunson has gotten a fair whistle through the first three games of the Eastern Conference Finals.
“Some of the plays are – they’re 50-50, they can go either way,” Thibodeau said before tipoff of Game 4 against the Pacers on Tuesday. “He’s taking charges and he’s getting called for blocks. I don’t care what the officiating is saying. I’ve studied the league a long time, I know what a charge looks like. And then to — you challenge it and they still say — I’ll just leave it at that.”
Brunson has been whistled for 13 personal fouls in the series, recording five apiece in Games 1 and 3. He picked up four in the first half of Game 3 and spent much of the fourth quarter watching from the bench.
The breakdown paints a clear picture. His first foul came at the 3:08 mark of the opening quarter, bumping Obi Toppin out of bounds on a drive. His second: a hard closeout on an Andrew Nembhard pump fake at 6:39 in the second. The third could have gone either way — Aaron Nesmith barreled into Brunson with his shoulder, but the whistle went against the Knicks’ guard. And the fourth, again, came on a Nembhard pump fake, with Brunson closing out and making contact near the sideline.
“Again, you want to play with physicality, there’s contact with intelligence and also reading the way the game’s being officiated,” Thibodeau said. “Sometimes there’s a variance from game to game, so you have to adjust accordingly. But you don’t want that to take away from your aggressiveness. Having discipline and understanding what’s going on is very important.”
The Pacers have made it a point to target Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns on the defensive end. Brunson’s fifth foul came with 7:03 left in the fourth quarter, when Nembhard once again drove straight into him in transition.
Towns, who battled foul trouble throughout the regular season, entered Game 4 with 12 personal fouls in the series. He averaged 4.5 fouls per game in Round 1 against the Pistons and 4.3 per game in Round 2 against the Celtics.
“Yeah I think that [teams targeting Brunson and Towns] is a big part of the NBA,” Thibodeau said. “You see it every night and it’s not anything new. You deal with it all night long and that’s how most teams play. So you have to have awareness, be tied together, you have to be in the gaps and you have to communicate, everything tied in to the ball.”
Brunson acknowledged after Monday’s film session that he needs to be smarter when teams hunt him defensively — a tactic no secret to anyone familiar with his game.
“Obviously when teams hunt me, it is what it is. Obviously, I’m gonna give my effort, give everything I have,” he said in a Zoom conference call on Monday. “I’ve just gotta be smart and not foul, and I think if I just keep my body in the right position and contest shots, and foul or not foul or not receive the foul, I’ll put my team in a better position to win.”
