Throughout his six seasons as a Golden State Warriors assistant, Mike Brown skilled the nightly masterclass that’s Stephen Curry’s 3-point taking pictures.
He watched as Curry demonstrated the worth of coming off of screens and getting open for catch-and-shoot 3-pointers, regardless of being the Warriors’ main level guard.
“I always felt if I ever had a team, I don’t care what my point guard’s like,” Brown recalled Wednesday. “I’m gonna try to get him off the ball.”
That imaginative and prescient is coming to fruition in Brown’s first season as head coach of the Knicks.
In Brown’s system, Jalen Brunson has added a component to his offensive arsenal with an uptick in catch-and-shoot 3-pointers.
Earlier than Wednesday’s recreation in opposition to the Orlando Magic at Madison Sq. Backyard, Brown confirmed that he’s tried to implement a few of Curry’s recreation into Brunson’s.
“Nobody can be like Steph. He’s an amazing player,” stated Brown, who labored for the Warriors from 2016-22.
“What makes him so unique is his ability to play on the ball and off the ball, so in a seven-game playoff series, teams have a hard time adjusting to him, because it’s hard to take away everything.”
Coming into Wednesday, Brunson was making 1.7 catch-and-shoot 3-pointers on 3.2 makes an attempt per recreation, good for 53.1%.
Final season beneath Tom Thibodeau, Brunson made 0.8 catch-and-shoot 3-pointers on 1.9 makes an attempt per recreation, or 42.1%.
In his earlier three years with the Knicks, Brunson by no means made greater than 1.1 catch-and-shoot 3-pointers or tried greater than 2.5 per recreation.
“In the offseason, that’s what I worked on,” Brunson stated on Tuesday evening. “I worked on relocating, and the talk was playing off-ball, so why don’t I just work on that? That was a lot of the stuff I did this summer. The ball is going in when I do it.”
Brunson made six 3-pointers in Tuesday’s 133-120 win over the Memphis Grizzlies, and three of them got here through catch and shoot.
The distinction is obvious to Magic head coach Jamahl Mosely, who was an assistant with the Dallas Mavericks throughout Brunson’s first three seasons there from 2018-21.
“He’s moving differently without the basketball,” Mosely stated. “They run a lot of different actions, the way he’s coming off the handoffs on the backside versus him bringing the ball up the court the entire time. Just his ability to be off the ball, then playing off of closeouts, which is tough for him, because now he has some rest as he gets the ball back in his hands, so he’s able to attack you at full speed.”
Throughout Brown’s six years with Golden State, Curry made not less than 2.0 catch-and-shoot 3-pointers per recreation in all however one season.
When Brown left in 2022 to grow to be the Sacramento Kings’ head coach, he tried to implement an analogous recreation plan for level guard De’Aaron Fox.
“If the defense wants to play you this way, go in the corner,” Brown stated. “The ball will find you if we’re moving and spacing the right way. That’s what I tried to do with Fox, even though he’s a pick-and-roll-dominant guy, ball in his hands. And that’s what I’m trying to do with Jalen.”
FULL STRENGTH
The Knicks had been at full energy for Wednesday’s Japanese Convention conflict with the Magic, as heart Mitchell Robinson returned to the lineup after sitting out of Tuesday’s win for harm administration for his surgically repaired left ankle.
The Magic, in the meantime, received again guard Jalen Suggs, who sat out on Monday for harm administration for the left knee that he underwent surgical procedure on in March.
Franz Wagner was additionally lively for Orlando, albeit in a face masks, after struggling a damaged nostril in Monday’s win over the Portland Path Blazers.
