Knicks' offensive concepts and willingness to make adjustments have paid big dividends

GREENBURGH — The plan began to take shape on the other side of the world when the Knicks gathered for preseason workouts and games in Abu Dhabi. Mike Brown began to talk about the concepts and strategies he’d arrived with as the new head coach.

But change is hard, and sometimes you have to wait for desperation.

For the Knicks, that didn’t come until the opening round of the playoffs when they fell behind the Hawks two games to one and panic was setting in. Resistance gave way to reality; any objections to Brown putting his own ideas on the line were cast aside and the Knicks rebuilt their offense.

They put the ball in Karl-Anthony Towns' hands for the remainder of the series, starting a run of 11 consecutive wins with the 7-foot center as the hub of the offense. But in shifting the strategy, the Knicks also opened up a world of possibilities.

If the opposition tries to blanket Jalen Brunson, let Towns orchestrate the offense. If the opposition pressures Towns, let Brunson operate in open space. Focus on both of them? Josh Hart  initiates the offense and Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby flourish in the holes in the defense.

It all works now. But why now?

“You know, I always look at it as just evolving,” Brown said Thursday. “You know, I came in with an idea during training camp, and for the most part, I thought it was pretty good. It didn't fit everybody exactly how I thought it would, and so you try to tweak some things as you move along, and we made a pretty big tweak about halfway through the year.

“And then in the playoffs … Atlanta, they're really good, Quin Snyder and his group. And all these teams have been really good, and they’ve made us play a little different. We played a little different where we emphasized certain things against Cleveland that we didn't emphasize as much against Philly, that we didn't emphasize as much against Atlanta, and so continuing to try to find ways to help the group score in the half-court was something that we all opened our minds to. After I think Game 3, it's like, bam, here it is.”

Desperation.

When the Knicks fell behind Atlanta in the opening round, Dyson Daniels, along with plenty of help, worked to try to slow Brunson, who has always been the Knicks' safety net. The work it was taking him to get himself going and to involve his teammates was making every possession a fight.

After that third game, Brown and Towns met and changed the strategy, planting Towns on the perimeter and letting him start the offense, letting Brunson play off the ball. Suddenly everyone was involved, and the results have been astounding.

“I get welcoming suggestions from our players,” Brown said. “I get welcoming suggestions from our coaches, and I always just try to say, ‘Hey, this is probably the best for the team,' and go with it. Fortunately, it helped us out during that series, and it's helped us out since.”

In the 11 games that followed, Towns averaged 6.5 assists per game, notching 10 three times and posting a pair of triple-doubles. He attempted only 9.2 shots per game and was content with that, still operating efficiently. He averaged 15.7 points per game and shot 57.4%, 48.5% from beyond the arc.

In the three games before that, he averaged only 3.3 assists, still better than the 3.0 he averaged in the regular season and better than any other playoff run in his career. But that was sacrifice, too. Towns averaged 21.4 points per game in the playoffs last season and attempted  15.8 field goals per game.

Brunson’s usage rate has dipped from 31.3 in the first round to 30.6 in the Eastern Conference semifinals to 27.3 in the Eastern Conference Finals. In the first three games, he averaged 27.7 points and shot 42.3%. Since the shift, he has  averaged 26.3 points per game and shot 50.7%.

“I feel like we’ve always had different ways to approach things,” Brunson said. “What’s the frequency of what we’re running at the time? Being able to have that in our back pocket and obviously being able to adjust during the playoffs is not that easy, but it’s definitely something that we’ve practiced and we gotta continue to make good habits out of those.”

As a team, starting with Game 4 in Atlanta, the Knicks have averaged 122.1 points per game,  but what worked against Atlanta wasn’t the way they played every game. Against Cleveland, Brunson scored 38 points in Game 1 and posted a playoff career-high 14 assists in Game 2.

After finally breaking out what began in training camp and was mostly just worked on in practice, the Knicks now have multiple styles they can use, a versatile attack that makes them adaptable to whatever defense they face.

“Everybody grows in their journey,” Brown said. “And being an assistant in Golden State helped out a lot. Almost everything they do is conceptual. When you get to the playoffs, everybody first of all knows exactly what play is coming. So if I were sitting here going ‘Two up! Two up! Two up!” every single one of our opponent’s assistants would be like, ‘Pick-and-roll coming! This guy’s doing it! This guy, shrink! Tuck!’ And they know ahead of time exactly what’s coming and the game is physical, so they’re gonna really bump you to mess with your frontcourt pace, and it’s gonna disjoint you offensively.

“If you can understand, OK, hey, let’s get the flow. Let’s play in flow, and it’s read-and-react based off where the ball goes and where the body goes, now it’s a lot harder for their staff to help them ahead of time . . .  And if your guys understand concepts and can play conceptual basketball offensively, come playoff time versus very good defensive teams that only get better as you advance, it gets more physical, which can disjoint you offensively, you’ll have a better chance at having some success, because like I said, they don’t know exactly what’s coming in a timely manner.”

By Steve Popper

steve.popper@newsday.com@StevePopper

Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.