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IT WASN’T QUITE a crisis point, but perhaps it was a crossroads. The New York Knicks were trailing 2-1 in the first-round series against the pesky upstart Atlanta Hawks.
The Hawks had proved they were uniquely qualified to handle the Knicks’ offense with Jalen Brunson as its fulcrum, employing switchable defenders who had no problem selling out against New York’s undersized captain and top scorer. After all, the Hawks hadn’t needed to worry about much else through the series’ first three games.
But Knicks coach Mike Brown, who had spent virtually all of his first season at the helm in New York wrestling with how to best use Brunson’s most decorated teammate, Karl-Anthony Towns, was about to deliver a message that would turn the squad into a playoff juggernaut.
In the team’s film session on the day between Games 3 and 4 in Atlanta, things got real. Brown is soft-spoken when speaking publicly about his players, but film sessions are often autopsies in which unspoken truths are laid bare and accountability is demanded.
And during one moment on that late-April day in Atlanta, Brown looked to Towns.
The film had just shown a play from Game 3 in which Towns was supposed to screen for Brunson but stood in the corner instead. Brown called him out. “You want the ball? What are you doing here?” a source with knowledge of the film session told ESPN.
Whether it was a watershed moment or a last-ditch effort from Brown to revive a Knicks season nearing its brink, that film session birthed the machine that has become the team’s playoff offense, which has powered seven consecutive wins heading into Tuesday’s Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers (8 p.m. ET, ESPN).
It began with a demolition of the Hawks. The Knicks closed them out in Game 6 with a 59-point drubbing. “In a way, it felt like [Brown] saying, ‘Screw it, I’m going to do things my way,'” one Knicks player told ESPN of the style change.
Going down 3-1 in the first round…
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