Knicks’ Mike Brown says quiet part out loud about targeting James Harden in ECF Game 1

The New York Knicks were down and out in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday night, trailing by 22 points in the fourth quarter. Improbably, Mike Brown’s team found a way to turn things around and force overtime before racing to a 115-104 victory to get ahead in the series.

The Knicks struggled on offense for much of the evening, as the Cavs’ length on the interior bothered Jalen Brunson and the rest of the Knicks’ scorers. However, New York found some success in the fourth quarter by going at James Harden and getting him switched onto Brunson in isolation.

After the game, Knicks head coach Mike Brown didn’t even try to hide his gameplan at the end of the game.

"It was no secret we were attacking [James] Harden"

Mike Brown pic.twitter.com/VEOADARpYR

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“Just like we have to try to figure out ways to guard Harden and [Donovan] Mitchell, they have to figure out ways to guard Jalen,” Brown said. “It was no secret that we were attacking Harden.”

The numbers back up the Knicks’ gameplan, and they show how effective it truly was. Harden guarded an unthinkable 21 ball-screens in the fourth quarter and overtime along with nine isolations. The Knicks got 1.6 points per possession on the ball-screens and 1.9 points per trip on the isolations against the former MVP, both of which are incredibly efficient numbers.

The jarring thing to see was that the Cavs were happy to surrender the switch even after Brunson got going in the Harden matchup. After the game, Kenny Atkinson called Harden one of Cleveland’s best defenders, and the Cavs were clearly ready to go down with the ship in this one.

When things get tight later in this series, it won’t be a surprise at all to see the Knicks go at the same matchup time and time again, While Brunson may not score every single time like he almost did at the end of this game, it’s still a matchup that favors New York on that end. On the other end, Atkinson has a dilemma to solve to prevent Harden from getting stuck on an island again.

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