Jalen Brunson struggles and Knicks offense falters in 109-99 loss to Heat

Once again, on a night when Jalen Brunson was not at his best, the offense could not pick up the slack and the Knicks fell to the Heat in Miami, 109-99, for their third straight loss.

With Julius Randle missing his 29th straight game and OG Aanunoby missing his eighth straight, the Knicks offense just has no margin for error when Brunson isn’t at his best. That was evident when after combing from down 10 to tie it late in the fourth quarter there was nothing left to steal a win in Miami.

With the loss, New York fell to 44-31 on the year to slide into the No. 5 seed in the Eastern Conference, losing a tiebreaker to the Orlando Magic and are now a full game behind the Cleveland Cavaliers for the No. 3 seed. Miami improved to 42-33 and is a half-game behind the Indiana Pacers for the No. 6 seed.

The Knicks now have just seven games remaining to improve on their seeding, with four coming on the road, including games in Milwaukee and Boston.

Here are the takeaways…

– Brunson sounded like he had a cold at shoot around earlier on Tuesday, according to Newsday’s Barbara Barker. “I don’t feel the best, but I’m fine,” he said. The result of Tuesday’s game will surely not alleviate any symptoms for the All-Star guard, who had a rare off night.

Brunson finished with 20 points on 5-for-18 shooting (1-for-6 from three) with 10 assists and two rebounds. He committed five turnovers and was a minus-9 in 36 minutes.

– The Knicks entered the fourth quarter down 10 and clamped down on the Heat, holding them to 3-for-13 from the floor and with a 10-0 run – powered by two Miami turnovers, giving them 17 in the game to that point – New York found themselves down just 92-90 with just under five minutes to play.

Precious Achiuwa tipped in a rebound for his first points of the game to momentarily tie the game a minute later, the first time the game was tied, the closest the Knicks had been since they led 11-10 at the 8:47 mark in the first.

But they wouldn’t get any closer, Achiuwa committed a silly foul before Brunson missed a jumper and dribbled the ball off his foot out of bounds on back-to-back possessions amid a 10-2 Miami run…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/jalen-brunson-struggles-knicks-offense-021810484.html

Author : SNY

Publish date : 2024-04-03 02:18:10

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