0-2 in desperate situation! Brunson s merits and demerits are due to the culprit, and the finals are emerging

With the Knicks losing again at home, the score is now 0-2 like the Timberwolves in the West, but the Knicks lost two home games in a row, and the situation is even worse. Obviously they are in a desperate situation! So, why can't the Knicks beat the Pacers? You have to know that they don't suffer any losses in the regular season, but why can't they do it in the playoffs? The key is that they can't defend against Pacers in hot form - they are good at taking advantage of misalignment, and their offensive end is smooth, and their three-point shooting percentage is more than 40%, which is the only one in the league.

Brunson is currently rated as the best offensive player and worst defensive player in the 2025 NBA playoffs - his offensive end +4.9 plus-negative value is the best playoffs, highlighting his huge scoring and offensive influence. However, his defensive end -3.7 has the worst plus or negative value, and from the data point of view, this is the worst defender. Brunson is the barometer of the Knicks. On the offensive end, Brunson is as outstanding as any star in the league. With his height, it is incredible that he has such a performance. In the playoffs, Big Head averaged 30.4 points, 7.7 assists and 3.6 rebounds per game, shooting percentage of 45.6%, and 35.8% from three-point shooting percentage. Against the Pacers alone, he averaged 39.5 points and 8.0 assists in two games, including his performance of 36 points and 11 assists in the second game. He really carried a team with one person. With this effort, Brunson wrote himself into the team's legend, surpassing Patrick Ewing, and scored 30+ points to the first place in team history - this is his 18th game like this, you know, this is his second season with the team.

Therefore, Brunson also reached the elite level with such performances - he scored at least 30 points and 10 assists in Game 7 of the playoffs, a feat that only LeBron James and Michael Jordan have done. Still, the Knicks trailed the Pacers 0-2 in the Eastern Conference Finals, and the question is not Brunson's offense, but what happens when the opponent targets him on the defensive end.

At the critical moment, the defensive collapse has always troubled the Knicks because they can't defend against the Pacers' multi-point blossoming. The Pacers often attacked Brunson in pick-and-roll, and Halliburton irritated him. For example, Harry relied on his height advantage in the final quarter of G2 and scored a three-pointer against Brunson, but Brunson had no choice. EPM data shows that Brunson's front defense and lateral movement speed are simply a very different from his performance on the offensive end. The five players on the Pacers have offensive threats, and they can all misplace their position and eat alone when facing Brunson, especially at critical moments. This situation puts Knicks head coach Thibodeau in trouble. There is no doubt that Brunson is the team's offensive engine and spiritual leader, but his defensive loopholes also put the Knicks in a dilemma. The Knicks' starting lineup is -50 in the playoffs, the lowest among all five-man groups in the league, among which the total plus and negative values ​​in the Pacers' two games were -29.

There is no doubt that Brunson is the greatest attacker in the team's history, and he is a critical, efficient, and ruthless scoring machine. But for the Knicks to turn the series around, they need a better team defense or find a way to cover up Brunson’s defensive weaknesses without undermining his offensive role.

In addition to Brunson's defensive loophole, Towns didn't know what happened to this round. In the G2 game, Towns played for 28 minutes, with a low plus-minus value -20. The reason is Towns' defense - data shows that when Towns was on the court, the Pacers made 9 of 18 three-pointers and hit a 50% shooting percentage. When he was not on the court, the Knicks moved quickly to limit the Pacers' three-pointers to 4 of 12. This is why Thibodeau wants to have a short DNP in the last quarter of G2 (9 minutes to the last quarter, Downs is on the bench), and would rather use Miro! Before

G2, the two inside players, Towns and Miro, were completely different from those on the court:

data shows that when Towns was on the court, the team's offensive efficiency was 113.4, the defensive efficiency was 115.6, and the net efficiency was -2.2; when Miro was on the court, the team's offensive efficiency was 118.6, the defensive efficiency was 111, and the net efficiency was +7.6; when two people were on the court at the same time, the offensive efficiency was 117.1, and the defensive efficiency was 95.7, and the net efficiency hit a terrifying 21.1. So, why didn’t Thibodeau replace Hart in bad shape without Towns? When the

series was behind 0-2, the Knicks had only 0 wins and 14 losses in the history of the playoffs, and the Thunder in the West also took the absolute lead with 2-0, so we can imagine the matchup in the finals, and the probability of Pacers vs. Thunder is getting bigger and bigger!