Knicks head coach Mike Brown believes his All-Star point guard Jalen Brunson should be in the MVP conversation.
“Obviously he’s an All-Star, he’s a guy that should definitely be in the conversation for Player of the Year,” Brown said ahead of tipoff against the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday. “It’s no surprise. If you’re around the guy, and you see his work ethic, and you know his intensity and all that other stuff, it’s definitely not a surprise.”
Brunson entered Friday averaging 30.3 points on 51.6 percent shooting over his last five games. For the season, he’s at 28.6 points on 48.3 percent shooting — while playing one fewer minute per game than he did last year.
Brunson ranks seventh in the NBA in scoring behind Luka Dončić (35.2), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (32.6), Tyrese Maxey (32.2), Giannis Antetokounmpo (31.2), Donovan Mitchell (29.9) and Nikola Jokić (29.6). Among that group, Brunson takes the third-most shots per game (21.3) and is second in attempts (22.8) over the last five outings.
Brown is most pleased with how Brunson is scoring.
“The biggest thing is are you willing to do it in an environment where he’s not logging a ton of minutes and/or he’s not working extremely hard to get [his points],” Brown said. “We like how he’s scoring — he’s scoring in a variety of different ways: He’s got some catch-and-shoot, he’s getting to the rim, he’s coming off of [dribble hand-offs], he’s playing some pick-and-roll, he playing some iso. It’s continuing to try and move him around while watching his minutes and not eating him up or not relying on him to carry us home all the time is really what we’re trying to focus on.”
Brunson’s isolations are down from 17.3% of his offense last season to 13.5% under Brown, and his catch-and-shoot threes have skyrocketed. He’s taking 3.1 per game and hitting 46.8% — the best mark on the team and fourth-best in the league among players averaging 30+ minutes. Under Tom Thibodeau, he took only 1.9 per game despite shooting 42.2%.
CHANGE IN THE OFFENSE
Bucks head coach Doc Rivers says the Knicks look significantly different than they did when the two teams met on Oct. 28.
“They’re not playing the same as they played earlier in the year,” Rivers said before Friday’s matchup at Madison Square Garden. “Earlier in the year, they were all drive-and-kick, very few pick-and-rolls.”
Milwaukee beat the Knicks, 121-111, in that October meeting — the second of five straight road losses to open New York’s season. Rivers said the biggest shift is how much more the Knicks are leaning on the Brunson–Karl-Anthony Towns partnership.
“Now they’ve gone back to the Brunson-Towns pick-and-roll — which makes a lot of sense — and yet they’re still trying to move the ball and play downhill and play draw-and-kick basketball,” Rivers said. “But I think the biggest change they have made since we played them is they have definitely added more pick-and-rolls since than they had when we played them the first game.”
Brunson ranks fifth in the NBA in scoring as a pick-and-roll ball handler: 9.7 points on 9.8 possessions per game. Towns ranks 10th among roll men at 3.6 points per possession.
NO-SAN FOR TOSAN
Brown also offered praise for Tosan Evbuomwan, the 6-7 forward signed to a two-way contract this offseason, though he stopped short of committing to a larger role while OG Anunoby (hamstring) and Landry Shamet (shoulder) remain out.
“[Tosan is] a big wing, and he’s capable of guarding a lot of different positions, and he’s got some skill offensively, and early during the preseason he played well for us when we threw him in there. I want to say we threw him in there (in the regular season) in one of those early games and he was big. I know in the preseason he was big for us a couple times. You like his physicality. You like the way he moves his feet. You like the way he rebounds and some other things and he can potentially get some minutes for us,” Brown said. “With OG being out, and Landry too – we wanted another big wing. He’s a young guy that could fit what we’re looking for going forward. I’m excited about him, and we’ll just see what happens in time.”
Want more insights? Join Grow With Caliber - our career elevating newsletter and get our take on the future of work delivered weekly.
