Last Year's Brunson Makes an Appearance in an Ugly Blowout Victory! Here Are My Four Notables from the Knicks vs. Pelicans Game!

They’re back! The Knicks looked like the team from last year that dominated sub-500 teams, finding alternative ways to win and getting the job done. The Brunson Burner was hot and lit a flame to help ignite the Knicks, whose offense was sometimes stagnant. You have to credit the New Orleans Pelicans' defense, as those young boys took away the Knicks' bench, holding them to six points while holding every other player to sub-20 points. They made it a contest by challenging the Knicks, especially defending them at a high clip. However, these Knicks were more than resilient with their 2nd half-heroics as they spawned some road MVP chants for Cap. Also, it’s hard to credit the Knicks for going up against one of the league’s worst offenses, but I felt the Knicks' defense kept the Pelicans at bay.

Here are the 4 Knick game notables:

The Starters Played Way Too Many Minutes!

Let me start this by saying I love coach Thibs, and he mostly does a fine job. While I understand that the bench only provided 6 points of production, playing the starter for 40-plus minutes in a dogfight against a sub-500 team could have backfired. Yes, Karl-Anthony Towns was in foul trouble, but you still had Jericho Sims or Ariel Hukporti there if you needed them. At first, Thibs was going to go with the eight-man rotation but expanded it to nine when he saw the bench wasn't giving much production. Although Precious Achiuwa had seven rebounds, his two points weren't enough to help provide the Knicks starters any complimentary support. Anytime you have to play Jalen Brunson for 40 minutes to land a mini blowout against the sub-500 teams, it could result in a diminishing return of a high workload.

Last Year's Jalen Makes An Impressive Return:

Last year’s Brunson made a much-needed appearance, and he’s looked good scoring when the Knicks needed it the most. In a previous game review, I asked if last year’s Jalen Brunson would please stand up. And I wrote that because when the Knicks needed scoring and someone to take over the game, it's those moments where they need an aggressive shoot first, Brunson. Not the new Captain 11, who’s a pass-first scoring-second guard. They need someone who knows when to shoot and can become unconscious when putting up the buckets. The most impressive thing to me last night was seeing Jalen Brunson take over the game when his team needed him the most.

The Knicks' bench was nonexistent on the offense side of the floor.

I know I said Coach Thibs played the starters too many minutes, but the bench was the primary catalyst. Deuce McBride averages about 10 points a game, and he could only provide two last night. Cam Payne averages around eight points a game, but his lack of scoring affected the bench production. If Duece and Cam can’t get it going, it puts the Knicks in a deficit because those guys 18 points helped the Knicks offload some of the responsibility that the starters have to bear. Though we won the game, I won't make a big deal of this, and I’m hopeful for a big bounce-back game against the Raptors and the Spurs and our next two games.

This team can thrive against physicality!

In my opinion, Willie Green, the coach of the Pelicans, had the right mindset when he drew up the game plan for this game against the Knicks. Willie knew his team wasn't as talented as the Knicks, so they'd have to take it back and play like their traditional team did in the 90s. The Pelicans beat them up and tried to take Towns out of the game because of his "soft label," so they made it their duty to attack him. Towns picked up three fouls in the first half, thus reducing his minutes, as he didn’t play most of the second quarter. On top of that, they had a tall 6-8 Herb Jones stalking Jalen Brunson up and down the floor, and it stalled Brunson's ability to exploit the defense as he did in the 2nd half. There were many uncalled fouls and hard physical defense, and honestly, it was a traditional basketball aficionado’s dream. If this game took place within the 1st 10-game stretch of the season, the Knicks would have lost because their team wasn't primed to withstand the brute physical force of the opposing defense. However, a refined Knick team that has gotten its reinforcements from Precious Achiwa returned to the lineup and is more than capable of matching force.

It was the game against the Orlando Magic where the Knicks showed their prowess and ability to withstand the physical nature of competition, especially since the league has allowed more physicality and fewer foul calls. Despite the Knicks presenting themselves as a finesse team offensively with one of the top-ranked offenses in the league, they also have shown us that they can get it done when it’s dirty and nasty for one of the ugliest wins on the season.