In the regular season<\/a>, seven of the Knicks\u2019 top nine rotation players hit greater than 36.8% from three on 3.5 or more attempts per game. The two that didn\u2019t \u2014 Mohamed Diawara and Tyler Kolek \u2014 haven\u2019t even played in this series. So that means the Knicks\u2019 top 7 shooters, who are all well above league average are sometimes on the floor all at once. The only three Knicks getting minutes who aren\u2019t on that list are Mitchell Robinson, whom you still have to stay home on down low, and of course Spurs fans know what killers Jose Alvarado and hometown kid Jordan Clarkson can be off then bench if they get hot.<\/p>\n The Knicks haven\u2019t been at their best three so far in this series<\/a> (which is concerning as the series shifts to their home court), but they have been hitting them in timely fashion, and just like I have imagines implanted in my brain of Mikal Bridges nailing five open threes in their regular season blowout win over the Spurs in Madison Square Garden, I saw similar instances in Game 2 in particular, where a Spurs defender left his man open in the corner for a split second to double-team or swipe at Brunson, only for him to immediately find the open shooter before the defender can recover. And as Mike Breen would put it, bang.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if this is the strategy the coaches have chosen up to this point or if the players are having momentary but costly lapses. Regardless of the reason, both parties need to make the adjustment back to staying at home on shooters, especially in that left hard corner. Just take a look at the Knicks shot chart in this series:<\/p>\n NBA.com<\/p>\n If this doesn\u2019t scream \u201ckeep letting Brunson work in the midrange but stop leaving corner shooters open\u201d, then I don\u2019t know what does. (In case you\u2019re wondering, the Spurs are also green in the left corner but on a smaller sample size of 4-9, otherwise they\u2019re red everywhere except inside the restricted area, where they are a similar 35-55. You can check out all the stats and charts here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Of course, there are plenty more things the Spurs could do better besides defend one particular shot. They actually led in the final two minutes of both games before proceeding to blow it in crunch time, Game 2 in particularly painful fashion (but it still doesn\u2019t beat Game 6 of 2013 \u2014 I don\u2019t think anything could), so better decision making in with the game on the line is paramount. Leaving a combined 12 points on the court via missed free throws (seven in game 2) is another thing they can go back and kick themselves over. (Speaking of which, blowing two games in which they had an optimal whistle is also costly, because how long will that last?)<\/p>\n Things happen in-game that no one can predict or control. What can be controlled is strategy and game plan, and the Spurs staff and players have shown throughout these playoffs that they can learn and adjust. They made the exact same adjustment of staying home on shooters and guarding the opposing star one-on-one last series, and hopefully the plan heading into Game 3 is to do that again. Brunson may be more capable of going nuclear than SGA \u2014 he has scored 60 points on the Spurs before, but guess what? The Spurs won that game.<\/p>\n There is nothing fun about being down 0-2, knowing you could just as easily be 1-1 or even 2-0, and facing the gauntlet of needing to win 4 of 5 games, including two on the road, to win a series \u2014 never mind a championship in an era when the Finals are a lot more difficult to reach than they were during the Spurs\u2019 dynasty days (which is insane). However, if there is a silver lining, it\u2019s that all pressure is on the Knicks now<\/a>, and the Spurs can play free and make adjustments without fear of consequence. They\u2019ve shown they can do it before, and now it\u2019s time to do it again.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/SAS-vs-NYK-Shots-in-Series.png\"\/)
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