Don’t Make The Tiny Man Dribble While Everyone Else Stands Still

Basketball is a sport where five teammates work together to dribble and pass the ball up the court and ultimately toss it into the hoop. Certain exceptions exist. For instance, the final possessions of a close New York Knicks playoff game. Here basketball is a sport where a solitary little fella bounces the ball indefinitely until he has no choice but to fling it in the direction of the hoop. That is fair description of the final Knicks possessions in Game 3 of their first-round series against the Atlanta Hawks, one of which ended in an Jalen Brunson airball, and the other in a Jalen Brunson turnover, as the Knicks lost by one point for the second consecutive game.

Brunson is a one-man offensive system (complimentary and derogatory). He is an incredible talent. Were he not on the team, the Knicks wouldn’t be remotely good enough to disappoint as violently as they do. But he has his preferences, which have held fast across different coaching regimes. He likes to hold onto the ball. He likes to dribble and dribble and probe the defense with a sequences of head fakes, hesitations, crossovers, shoulder bumps, pivots, until he’s pried open a tiny bit of space to get off his jumper. (These moves, while deft, might also get a little easier to predict over the course of a seven-game playoff series.) Often, when the defense collapses on Brunson, you can see him seeing a passing window and deciding against it, because he’d rather avoid the risk of turnover and take the shot himself. These tendencies are exacerbated to comical extremes when the stakes are highest, and the defenders are playing hardest. His teammates—because the coach has told them so; because they have great trust in their captain; because their capacities for off-ball movement have atrophied while playing alongside him—often stand stationary while he breaks it down.

This tendency wasn’t specific to former head coach Tom Thibodeau’s infamously stodgy offenses. We see it still under the regime of current head coach Mike Brown, who was brought in to give them some new offensive juice, and to take better advantage of the other extremely talented players on the roster, like Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, and Mikal Bridges, all of whom can create their own shot against a defense in rotation. I’m not even saying that Brunson isolation is a bad outcome for a given possession. Perhaps it is better than passing the ball to Bridges, who, if he caught the ball under the rim, while all five defenders laid down supine on the hardwood, would still find a way to still take an 11-foot drifting jumper. I am just saying that I, personally, cannot look at it anymore. I need to see the ball change hands. I need to see a non-Brunson Knick take footsteps more purposeful than shifting their weight from one foot to the other. I would rather lose on a too-cute offensive set that sends a bad pass flying into the fourth row than watch Brunson take 40 dribbles into a double-team. I’m going to die.