TARRYTOWN, N.Y. \u2014 A high-stakes game of hot potato between two All-Stars spawned a showy bucket.<\/p>\n
On paper, the New York Knicks had just displayed their new offensive principles from the top shelf. They got into their attack early. They wasted no time from there. They involved the guards; then the two leaders, Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns, went into a pick-and-roll.<\/p>\n
During the first quarter of an exhibition against the Minnesota Timberwolves, basketball magic sparkled.<\/p>\n
Brunson picked up his dribble, shot faked his defender, Julius Randle, and stepped through an off-balance opponent to fire an on-target bullet to Towns, who had retreated to the paint. Even in the post-Tom Thibodeau era, one with first-year head coach Mike Brown installing a new offense, the Knicks are not the Knicks without Brunson juking someone, even if it\u2019s a friend and former teammate, out of his Sketchers. Towns held the pass for long enough to realize he didn\u2019t need it and immediately flung the ball back to a cutting Brunson, who rolled in an off-balance layup.<\/p>\n
On its face, 10 seconds of exhibition ball defined all the Knicks preached during the preseason.<\/p>\n
They want to get into the offense faster. Well, they ran their first action of this possession, a handoff between Brunson and Miles \u201cDeuce\u201d McBride, only four seconds into the shot clock. They want to encourage quick decision-making and purposeful cutting. Towns and Brunson could not have been swifter.<\/p>\n
This was beauty, a sign of the Knicks comprehending a faster-paced offense than they\u2019ve used in years, one based more on reads and concepts than on set plays. Yet, even in elegance was imperfection \u2014 and thus arose a teaching moment.<\/p>\n
The Knicks ran this action often during the preseason, especially when two point guards, such as Brunson and McBride, who will pair together often in 2025-26, shared the court.<\/p>\n
Brunson initiates the possession and heads to McBride, who receives a pitch back from his point guard. McBride can make a play from there or whip it back to Brunson, as he does on this play. The big man on Brunson\u2019s side \u2014 in this case, Towns \u2014 then ventures up to set a ball screen. There is also an option to toss the rock into the high post and run what\u2019s called a split action, where the two perimeter players screen for each other.<\/p>\n
But the hope is the Knicks can be even more crisp than they were on this dazzler.<\/p>\n
New York tips off the regular season Wednesday evening, when it hosts the Cleveland Cavaliers, a team constructed around intuitive cutting and purposeful movement. They and the Knicks are the two clear favorites to win the conference. And for the Knicks to do so, they aspire to reach another level from the one they did on this play.<\/p>\n
Take Brunson, for example, who is not used to running this type of two-man action so often.<\/p>\n
The Knicks are making handoffs, such as the above one between Brunson and McBride, a key part of their identity. Brown\u2019s offenses in Sacramento sprouted around similar types of actions, in part because the Kings employed one of the world\u2019s great dribble-handoff big men, Domantas Sabonis, and in part because this is how Brown teaches.<\/p>\n
Now, any of the Knicks\u2019 perimeter players can scurry around a screen to grab the rock from a teammate. And anyone \u2014 from the 7-footers to the Brunson-sized pests \u2014 can be a screener.<\/p>\n
The Knicks ran 66 dribble handoffs per 100 possessions during the preseason, far more than anyone else in the NBA, per Second Spectrum. Second in the league was the Denver Nuggets, who were down at 46. For even more context, the Knicks averaged 23 DHOs per 100 possessions last season, which placed them in the middle of the pack.<\/p>\n
This is new \u2014 including for Brunson, an unselfish superstar learning to play a new style.<\/p>\n
The reality is, as much brilliance as Brunson flaunts on this deke into a bucket and as much as Towns matches that energy with the quick-flick dish, the possession starts with a nitpick. When the Knicks are operating at full capacity, when this isn\u2019t still a learning process for them, Brunson will hand the ball off to McBride differently.<\/p>\n
Watch how Brunson approaches McBride at the start. He dribbles in McBride\u2019s direction, then underhands the ball back to his guard, telegraphing the play in the process and not getting in the way of McBride\u2019s defender, which defeats the purpose of the handoff.<\/p>\n
The Knicks ran this action 10 or so times during the preseason and not once did Brunson actually screen McBride\u2019s man. Doing so starts with his direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery cut, every move, you want to be a scoring threat, and right now we\u2019re not quite there,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how the Knicks can get there, at least with this action.<\/p>\n
Brown is coaching Brunson, or any other player heading into a dribble handoff, not to move toward his teammate but instead into the defender who is guarding his teammate. In this case, it\u2019s Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards. Because Brunson doesn\u2019t make contact with Edwards, the Wolves don\u2019t have to switch defenders. It doesn\u2019t open up a driving lane for McBride. It doesn\u2019t force Edwards to err under a screen and thus allow an unperturbed jumper to a sweet shooter.<\/p>\n
The play \u2026 just continues.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re still doing a little too much is, I\u2019m coming off and instead of going at (the defender), I\u2019m going right at Deuce and tossing it here,\u201d Brown said, reenacting the play. \u201cWe\u2019re just exchanging spots.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the Knicks perfect this action, Brunson will beeline straight at McBride\u2019s defender. Depending on where the opponent commits, Brunson can make a read from there. Maybe a lane spreads for him to drive downhill. Or maybe it doesn\u2019t, which means Brunson has to jump stop, set a screen on McBride\u2019s man and simultaneously hand it off to the 25-year-old.<\/p>\n
The Knicks have used only a few scripted plays so far this preseason. Brown\u2019s focus is more on concepts, an approach ripped from his years as an assistant to future Hall of Fame coach Steve Kerr during the height of the Golden State Warriors dynasty. The Warriors employ bright players capable of learning several actions, the sequencing of reads on those actions, then making decisions from there.<\/p>\n
Brunson is a coach\u2019s son, both literally and in vibes. McBride has a similar sort of mind. Brown\u2019s offense is relying on brains as much as ability.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re setting the foundation and basis of our offense,\u201d Brunson said. \u201cOnce we get that and get close to mastering it, we will move out to the next piece.\u201d<\/p>\n
They say don\u2019t mess with success, but that depends on your definition of success.<\/p>\n
An unexpected trip to the conference finals last spring didn\u2019t satiate the Knicks, who moved on from Thibodeau for Brown, in part because of his offensive philosophies. Team president Leon Rose released a statement shortly after firing Thibodeau, writing that the organization was \u201csingularly focused on winning a championship.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Knicks have stated their goal in the loudest way possible. The grander concepts \u2014 adding speed to the offense, securing bench depth during the offseason, running different types of actions \u2014 will help them win games. But the tiniest details could be the difference between losing earlier than the franchise hopes or winning on the final day of the season.<\/p>\n
After a preseason of discussing pace, the Knicks did speed up their offense over five exhibitions, when they took an average of 5.4 seconds to get into the first actions of possessions, the fourth-fastest pace in the league, according to Second Spectrum. For reference, New York finished 28th in that stat last regular season. One of the traits that led to the team\u2019s demise during the conference finals was its inability to create early offense. Too often, the Knicks would allow nine ticks to run off the clock before even acknowledging the start of a possession, not leaving them much time for success.<\/p>\n
Today, the emphasis is on adding purposeful haste.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s on concepts, not longer, drawn-out plays. In fact, Brown went most of the preseason without making a play call from the bench at all. He wants the players to grow comfortable making these quick decisions in the moment and plans to add more set plays as the season develops.<\/p>\n
But, as is to be expected in mid-October, even during the greatest highlights are teaching moments. The Knicks are still learning the nuances of a revamped system, one they\u2019re hoping can spell the difference between occasional flashes and consistent dominance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TARRYTOWN, N.Y. \u2014 A high-stakes game of hot potato between two All-Stars spawned a showy bucket. On paper,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,361,99],"class_list":["post-243064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}