Jalen Brunson’s surgical scoring and Karl-Anthony Towns’ perimeter gravity left Philadelphia’s defense scrambling in Game 1.
Jalen Brunson looked like he could get to whatever he wanted in Game 1, and the Philadelphia 76ers never really found a clean answer.
He finished with 35 points on 12-for-18 shooting, scoring 27 in the first half as the New York Knicks rolled to a 137-98 win. More than the raw numbers, it was the way Brunson controlled the game that stood out: he kept forcing switches, punishing coverage, and repeatedly finding seams in Philadelphia’s shell. The Sixers tried multiple defenders, but none of them stuck for long.
The New York Knicks' best Brunson sequence came in the first half, when they scored on six straight possessions almost entirely through the Brunson-Mitchell Robinson pick-and-roll. On those trips, he lobbed to Robinson, hit a short mid-range jumper, beat Kelly Oubre Jr. off the dribble, hit a step-back over Paul George, and then drilled a pull-up three after Embiid after being blitzed on the pick.
By halftime, Brunson had scored the final 11 points of the Knicks’ first-half surge, and New York led 74-51. There was nothing complicated about the actions that were called; Brunson was simply good enough to make Philadelphia pay for every error.
Karl-Anthony Towns was the other piece that made life miserable for Philadelphia. His spacing forced Embiid to step away from the rim, and once that happened, the Knicks were able to turn the floor into a much wider playground.
Towns finished with 17 points, six rebounds, and six assists in just 20 minutes. What made him so efficient was how slow Embiid was to step out and respect the range of Towns. In the next game, this issue will need to be corrected, as staying in the paint against a shooter of Towns' caliber will result in disaster.
That spacing also showed up in the three-point shooting around Brunson and Towns. OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, and Towns combined to shoot 21-for-29, including 8-for-12 from three, while the Knicks as a team posted a staggering 74.4% effective field goal percentage. Philadelphia, meanwhile, looked a step slow for much of the night.
For Philadelphia, the fix has to start with staying attached to Towns on the perimeter and making things harder for the Knicks' supporting group. The 76ers tried every defender they could on Brunson, and none of it worked, so making things harder for supporting pieces such as Bridges and Anunoby could be a decent alternative.
It will be interesting to see how Philadelphia adjusts in Game 2, as playing with the same sluggish energy could result in another blowout loss.
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Wes Dixon is a contributing writer to 76ersRoundtable. He can be reached at dixonwesley286@gmail.com.