Six Thoughts: Sixers Blitzed by Knicks in Game 1 As Brunson Goes Berserk

The New York Knicks, led by Jalen Brunson, shot the lights out in Game 1 to deliver a beatdown on the Sixers at Madison Square Garden.

Here are six thoughts on Game 1.

Let Brunson walk to the basket, why don't you?

Philadelphia's approach against Jalen Brunson early in this game was quite gimmicky. They were content chasing him through screens, allowing the Knicks to free him up with staggered actions to get to the middle of the floor. The physicality on those screens allowed Brunson to get downhill, pulling up for jumpers wherever he wanted on the floor.

The adjustment to that is you're probably going to have to switch those actions to get a body in front of Brunson before he can get to his pull-up. Or even if you don't want to switch out of the action and risk a mismatch out of those screens, you can borrow your strategy from the first-round series against the Boston Celtics and implement some peel switches so that Brunson is met on the other side of those screens.

But to just chase him through is bordering on disrespect. I get not wanting to exhaust adjustments early. It's a long series. But the chasing allowed him to walk into very easy shots from the very start of the game.

Even if you adjust away from that in-game, it's too late. You've allowed a superstar to get blistering hot, and the fire got out of hand.

While we're on the topic of less urgent defensive coverages, there is no justification for Joel Embiid playing several feet off Karl-Anthony Towns on pick-and-pops. That's not even a lack of attention to detail. That's a "we're mailing this one in" statement.

But yet...

That the Sixers came out with such a vulnerable scheme against Brunson was made more bizarre by Nick Nurse being aggressive when New York put Mitchell Robinson in the game. It was very smart to insert Justin Edwards for the purposes of hacking Robinson. It got the ball out of Brunson's hands and forced Mike Brown to get a little uncomfortable with Robinson clanking foul shots and Karl-Anthony Towns stapled to the bench with foul trouble.

How do you square away something so urgent like hack-a-Mitch with the otherwise unaggressive scheme in which Philadelphia came out?

While we're talking about Nurse...

He gave Quentin Grimes far too long a leash in the first half. This matchup was begging for more length, both at the point of attack and in rotation equity around the floor. Grimes gave Philadelphia basically nothing, and Nurse could've use Dominick Barlow's size out there.

What was Tyrese Maxey doing?

The Sixers could've played the most impeccable defense of their season in this game, it might not have mattered with Maxey playing as passively as he was. After taking over down the stretch to put the finishing touches on Game 7, Maxey took just nine shots in 26-and-a-half minutes of action. Brown refused to let Maxey get confidence early in this series, smothering him on the perimeter with his wings.

Maxey started to press as the first half went on, launching some lower-quality 3s to try to keep the Sixers from falling too far behind pace.

As this series goes on, the Sixers are going to have to do a much better job of introducing Brunson in actions that get him on Maxey. First, attacking Brunson will simply open things up more for Maxey. But it will be equally important to make Brunson actually work hard on defense. The more the Sixers make him work, the more energy he'll expend, the less he'll have for the offensive end.

A different challenge for V.J. Edgecombe

You could see Edgecombe trying to take control a bit as the game got out of hand. While he wasn't a primary culprit of things going haywire in this game, this will be a much more challenging matchup for him. There is no Sam Hauser to line up and attack in this matchup. Even Miiles McBride, while not the tallest guy, has some brick wall to him on defense. He and Maxey will have to take turns going at Brunson.

The Sixers have made it clear that they don't view him as a rookie. They don't feel the need to save him from taking bites that are too big. But having him chase Brunson around on defense and then letting him attack OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges is a lot, especially with the short turnaround time between these games.

The Sixers can't just say he's not experienced enough for the Brunson assignment. And, frankly, he's too good to be told who he can and can't guard. But it's unrealistic to think he's not going to flirt with foul trouble trying to go step for step with Brunson in this series. The Sixers should try to give him some reps on Anunoby and Bridges. Heck, if you want to mix up a matchup and throw him out to guard Towns on the perimeter, might not be the worst thing in the world.

How much should you worry?

Given the reaction locally and nationally to upsetting the Celtics just 48 hours prior, imagine the emotional high the people involved felt in wake of Game 7. An emotional letdown and some fatigue would not be the least bit surprising.

But look at the box score. 19 turnovers, 41.1% shooting from the field from the team who was battling for its life on Saturday night. The Knicks shot 63.1% and hit 19 3s. The Knicks' first shot offense was so unrealistically efficient that they only pulled down eight offensive rebounds on 31 misses.

The Sixers should flush this one because of how much variance was involved. But some schematic issues, game freshness and opponent shooting luck ate at a big chunk of their margin for error in this series. Going down 0-2 would make things very, very difficult. Having said that, the ball took just about every right bounce for the Knicks and every wrong bounce for the Sixers. If this series continues on that way, you shrug and ponder what deal New York made with the devil.

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