Carmelo Anthony certainly knows what it’s like to have to carry a Knicks offense on his back.
But these current Knicks invested heavily in a supporting cast so that Jalen Brunson would have help. But during the four-game skid the Knicks carried into play Wednesday, that supporting cast went missing.
And the Knicks became predictable as a result. It was glaring during their blowout loss to the Pistons in Detroit on Monday.
“This got me tight,” Anthony said on “NBA Showtime” on NBC on Tuesday. “I’m watching the game, the late-game offense becomes so, so predictable. The shot creation, that burden on Jalen Brunson, it’s too heavy on his shoulders from a night-to-night basis. The margins are very thin. Without easy offense, the Knicks miss shots that they turn into runouts the other way [for the other team]. You’re just focused on Jalen Brunson and there’s no movement, there’s no offense, there’s stagnation and, I don’t want to say you’re getting punked, but you’re getting punked in a sense.”
In that loss to the Pistons, OG Anunoby and Karl-Anthony Towns took just four shots apiece and finished with five and six points, respectively. Mikal Bridges had just 10 points. Brunson, meanwhile, took 21 shots — more than double any of his teammates — and recorded 25 points.
“I was watching the game [Monday] night and I’m, like ‘Where’s KAT? Where’s OG? We can’t rely on [Tyler] Kolek like that,” Anthony said. “What he gives us is a plus. He can get down, he can play off pick-and-roll, but on a night-to-night basis, who’s gonna be the Knicks’ second option? And the second option cannot be indecisive. … KAT can’t have six [points] and one [rebound] and OG gotta step up.”
Entering the season, one of coach Mike Brown’s primary missions was to take some of that exact pressure away from Brunson and let him play off the ball, giving more responsibility to others to set up the offense and facilitate. That, Brown believed, would create easier, more open looks for Brunson and lead to a more dynamic offense.
It requires ball movement. For most of the first half of the year, Brunson did a good job getting the ball out of his hands and cutting off the ball. But, with Josh Hart sidelined with a sprained ankle, there are not many options to handle playmaking duties and allow Brunson to do that — and to also create open looks for Anunoby, Towns and Bridges.
That has led to a return to the isolation-heavy offense — with long stretches of the ball in Brunson’s hands and little movement — that was common under Tom Thibodeau last year.
“We’re not getting off it like we were in the past,” Brown said. “You gotta make quick decisions and as soon as you feel another body come to you, you gotta get off it. And right now, we’re not doing it. We’re holding onto it too much, trying to force the issue too much. We have five staples and we’re not playing or adhering to what our staples are of late.”
But Hart, who will be reevaluated Friday ahead of a clash against the Suns in Phoenix, should return sometime soon. That should help get the secondary stars more involved.
And Anthony is not yet panicking.
“The Knicks are not broken,” he said. “They’re far from broken.”
