If even one other Knick had played with the attitude — and aptitude — of Jalen Brunson, there would be a basketball game at MSG on Monday night.
MIAMI — The Knicks can feel satisfaction about the season later. There’s a whole summer for that. There are four months between now and training camp, and at some point there will be distance and space from this final game, this final chapter, and the Knicks can maybe toast a season in which so much good happened.
Pity, too. If even one other Knick had played with the attitude — and aptitude — of Jalen Brunson, there would be a basketball game at Madison Square Garden on Monday night. There would have been at least 48 more minutes of basketball season, and as long as you still have season left you still have hope left., sweeping all three in Miami and advancing to the Eastern Conference finals, four games to two. The Garden will stay dark Monday night, and for the rest of the summer. No more hockey.
But he had no help. He had less than that. The other four starters shot the ball 32 times Friday night. They missed 27 of those shots. RJ Barrett finished 1-for-10. Julius Randle was 3-for-14. Quentin Grimes was 1-for-6. If one of them — just one — would have matched Brunson, we would be talking about some kind of fun Monday night.
“I was terrible tonight,” Barrett said. “I was very disappointed in how I played today. It’s a lot right now. You fight for something, you want something so bad.” This will gnaw at them, and it should. This will annoy them and you’d better believe that’s fair, because there were millions of Knicks fans back home living and dying with every misfire and every missed opportunity, yelping at their TV. These Knicks helped remind their long-suffering constituents just how much fun meaningful games in May can be. There will be time enough to celebrate that. And time enough now to digest a sobering reality.
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