The Knicks had 13 uncontested three-point appears within the first half Sunday evening. They made solely 4. That was the distinction between successful and dropping.
New York’s first defeat of the Mike Brown period got here by means of the three ball — or the shortage of it — in a 115-107 loss to the Miami Warmth at Kaseya Middle. The Knicks surrendered too many transition factors and free throws, however their 15-for-54 capturing from deep finally determined it.
Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges saved the offense alive, combining to hit eight of their 16 threes, however Karl-Anthony Cities went two-for-eight, OG Anunoby 4-for-12 and, with Miles McBride out for private causes, the bench trio of Guerschon Yabusele, Jordan Clarkson and Landry Shamet mixed to shoot 0-for-12 from distance.
“If you’re open, you’ve gotta shoot it, because I don’t know if we’re gonna get a better shot,” Brown stated after the sport. “I truly believe we’ll knock those downs. I can’t tell you if all 54 shots were good threes, but I know we had the right people taking them. So if you’re open, let it fly, and we’ll live with it.”
Brown’s three-point-heavy system is a pointy distinction to the half-court, grind-it-out strategy of Tom Thibodeau’s Knicks. Final season New York averaged simply 34 makes an attempt from deep per sport, good for bottom-five within the league. Underneath Brown, that quantity has exploded: 45, 40, and now 54 via three video games. By the ultimate buzzer Sunday, the Knicks led the NBA with a median of over 46 makes an attempt per sport.
“It truly doesn’t feel all that different,” Brunson stated after scoring a game-high 37 factors on 14-of-26 capturing. “We’re getting good looks. The ball’s in the paint, we’re making plays. I have faith in us that we’ll knock them down.”
Taking threes is one factor. Making them — and getting again after the misses — is one other. Every errant jumper fueled Miami’s transition assault, the place the Warmth piled up 45 quick break factors.
“There’s gonna be games like that where you get good looks and they don’t fall, and you’ve gotta figure it out defensively,” stated Josh Hart. “We gave them a lot of fast-break points, and obviously missed shots and bad possessions contributed to that. It’s Game 3. We’re learning. There will be growing pains, but we’ll be alright.”
Cities, one of many league’s premier capturing bigs, didn’t join from deep till the fourth quarter.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” he stated. “You’re completely happy you’re getting attractiveness, however on the identical time you’re annoyed as hell that you just’re not making them. We haven’t shot effectively to start out the season, however our offense is a giant firepower of ours and it’ll come collectively. So maintain capturing, keep assured.
“We’ll have days like this if we’re going to shoot the three ball as many times as we did today. You live and die by it. Today, we died by it.”
That is the brand new model of Knicks basketball — tempo, area, and quantity capturing — and for a crew with at the very least ten succesful marksmen, it’s an evolution that was lengthy overdue.
“I don’t think it’s too much of an adjustment because we have good shooters,” Hart stated. “We’re pushing the pace and getting shots up, but we’ve got to make sure we’re set, ready, and crashing the glass. This was kind of our first game of having some adversity, so we’ll continue to build.”
Brown was happy with the shot high quality however much less happy with the method that produced them. He preaches “spray threes” — photographs generated off paint touches and kick-outs — and needs 20 or extra per sport. The Knicks produced solely 18, a lot of them late after Miami had stretched its result in 17 within the fourth quarter.
“You saw the last eight minutes: you touch the paint, you spray it,” Brown stated. “You don’t go too deep. If you’ve got a guy closing out on you, snap-drive it, keep the dominos falling. Let somebody else come help, now you spray it. We didn’t get that rhythm until late, which is fine. We’ll figure it out. It’s why I’m okay with that. That’s still a learning curve.”
Three video games into the Brown period, the Knicks already look completely different: sooner, freer, and way more keen to let it fly.
Nights like this one in South Seashore are a part of the price of transformation. For a franchise rewriting its offensive identification, the message stays clear: the method issues greater than the proportion.
And so long as the Knicks maintain touching the paint, trusting the maths and believing within the work, Brown can reside with the misses.
“But what I’m not okay with, and it all kind of ties together, is us fouling and us giving up 45 transition baskets,” he stated. “It doesn’t matter how you play offensively, especially when you’re still trying to find your way, you can’t gift points to your opponent like that. That’s tough to overcome versus a good team on their home floor.”
Initially Printed: October 26, 2025 at 8:59 PM EDT
