Jalen Brunson leads offensive breakout in rout of Bulls as Knicks improve to .500
· Yahoo Sports
NEW YORK — Jalen Brunson wasn’t sweating his relatively slow start to the season.
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Instead, the Knicks captain on Tuesday attributed his down shooting numbers to simply “missing shots I normally make.”
Those shots were certainly falling Wednesday night.
Brunson erupted for a game-high 33 points — including 22 in the first quarter — in a 135-105 rout of the Chicago Bulls at Madison Square Garden as the Knicks (4-4) improved to .500 for the first time since the season opener.
Brunson shot 10 of 17 from the field, 5 of 10 on 3-pointers and 8 of 9 on free throws in 28 minutes, leading a blowout of lowly Chicago (1-7) that served as a get-right game for the Knicks’ struggling offense as a whole.
The Knicks scored 43 points in the first quarter and 41 in the second to take an 84-52 lead into halftime. The 84 points tied a franchise record for points in a first half, while Wednesday marked the first time in franchise history that the Knicks eclipsed 40 points in each of a game’s first two quarters.
Setting the tone was Brunson, who shot 8 of 10 from the field, including 4 of 5 on 3-pointers, in the first quarter.
The point guard started with a pair of layups, the second of which came after he crossed over touted rookie forward Caleb Wilson and blew right past him.
Brunson then caught fire from beyond the arc, drilling 3-pointers that grew increasingly more difficult. He punctuated his huge quarter with an off-balance pull-up from 26 feet, sinking it over Norman Powell to put the Knicks up 43-19.
Entering Wednesday, Brunson was shooting 39.3% from the field and 33.3% on 3-pointers, both well below his career averages.
“He’s taking the same shots as in the past. He’s, in my opinion, just missing shots,” head coach Mike Brown said Tuesday.
“He’s taking the right shots. I think all of our guys, for the most part, are taking the right shots. Right now, they’re not going in, and that can be for this reason, that reason. I don’t know, and I’m not going to try to overanalyze it.”
The Knicks began Wednesday ranked 27th in the NBA in scoring (106.4 points per game) and in field-goal percentage (41.9%).
But the Knicks looked much more like the well-oiled machine that surged to an NBA championship over the summer, shooting 50.6% from the field and 17 of 40 (42.5%) on 3-pointers.
After Brunson dominated the first half, Karl-Anthony Towns took control in the third quarter, nailing 3-pointers on the Knicks’ first two possessions and scoring 12 points in the period.
Towns finished with 17 points on 5-of-5 shooting and 12 rebounds.
OG Anunoby scored 18 points, while Mikal Bridges and Landry Shamet — who started with Josh Hart (right ankle soreness) sidelined — scored seven apiece.
Tyler Kolek contributed five assists in 11 minutes, operating as the backup point guard over Jose Alvarado, who did not enter the game until the fourth quarter, when the score was out of reach.
Making his Knicks debut, newly signed Dalton Knecht scored 10 points and shot 4 of 6. The 25-year-old former first-round pick helped the Knicks pull away in the second quarter with a put-back dunk and a step-back 3-pointer right before halftime.
After an 0-3 start, the Knicks have won four of their last five games.
Two of those wins came over the Bulls, but the previous one — a 133-127 victory in Chicago last week — came far less easily than Wednesday’s. The rebuilding Bulls led by as many as 19 points in that game and took a six-point advantage into the fourth quarter.
In the previous meeting, the Bulls — who play at the NBA’s fastest pace — made 18 3-pointers and scored 14 fast-break points. In Wednesday’s rematch, the Knicks limited the Bulls to six fast-break points and 7-of-34 shooting on 3-point attempts through three quarters.
None of the Knicks’ starters played in the fourth.
It was a commanding victory over a lesser opponent by the Knicks, who had also needed to overcome a fourth-quarter deficit in Monday night’s 103-90 win over another cellar-dweller in the Nets.
Next up is an Eastern Conference finals rematch against the Cleveland Cavaliers, whom the Knicks face on the road on Saturday night.