PHILADELPHIA — Jalen Brunson scored all nine of the Knicks’ points in overtime of Game 5, and that led the All-Star point guard to call their offensive process during the five added minutes in the giveaway loss “not good.”
Asked Thursday morning ahead of their second chance to close out the Sixers what specifically could have been done better, Brunson replied tersely, “my decision-making.”
He added that “keeping [the ball] with the New York Knicks and not throwing it to the fans in the front row” would have been “very helpful.”
Brunson netted 40 points overall in 51 minutes in the defeat, but he committed a key turnover with the Knicks trailing by two with 18.0 seconds left in overtime.
“That’s the one that everyone sees, so that’s the one obviously that’s on my mind,” Brunson added following the Knicks’ morning shootaround ahead of Game 6 at Wells Fargo Center. “But when I say better decision-making that means everything. I can’t settle.
“I’ve got to be better with everything I do. I can’t have mental lapses. Even though it’s towards the end of the game, everyone thinks that you’re tired, but that’s when I need to be at my best and I wasn’t.”
Following Tuesday’s collapse at MSG, the Knicks cited a miscommunication over whether to foul Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey ahead of his game-tying 3-pointer late in regulation.
Moments after Josh Hart missed one of two free throws to keep the Sixers within three, Maxey evened the score with a 34-footer with 8.1 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
“I think we talked about it a lot, but obviously we weren’t on the same page as a team at that very moment,” said Brunson, who also missed a technical free throw in overtime after a flagrant foul by Joel Embiid. “Like I said before, Thibs [Tom Thibodeau] talked to me right before Josh shot his first free throw. And I didn’t say what we needed to do to the team right away. I was just thinking about it in my mind.
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“Josh missed it, the first one, so my mind is thinking now the strategy is changing. As the person on the court who is supposed to lead the team, that’s what I didn’t do.”
Still, according to Brunson, nothing even needed to be said afterward beyond getting ready for Game 6.
“When we walked into the locker room, we didn’t say anything, so I think that spoke volumes. Clearly, we let one slip away,” Brunson said. “You gotta credit them for playing the way they did ‘til the last buzzer, but yeah, we didn’t really say too much. We knew that we let one go.
“Obviously when you have an opportunity to do something like that, you gotta take advantage of it. Clearly we didn’t do that, but for us, it’s all about how can you respond in this situation? You can be upset about it you can be pissed, but what are you gonna do to make sure that you’re ready for the next one? You gotta actually do something about it and just let it go.”