The Lakers would not allow Jalen Brunson to beat them.
Such a strategy could become a theme if the Knicks’ injury problems continue.
In Saturday’s loss to the Lakers, absences essentially narrowed the Knicks down to Brunson & the bench.
Gone were Julius Randle, OG Anunoby, Quentin Grimes and Mitchell Robinson, and remaining was a skeleton crew against LeBron James and friends.
Surrounding Brunson on the starting and closing group were Donte DiVincenzo, Josh Hart, Precious Achiuwa and Isaiah Hartenstein.
The Lakers, particularly in the fourth quarter, decided to attack the Knicks at their head.
The long Taurean Prince often would pick up Brunson as he crossed midcourt, and a second defender would blitz.
Brunson handled the pressure well in a game in which he only had three turnovers and often would pass out of the double-team, but his teammates could not capitalize often enough on a Lakers defense that then scrambled.
Hart particularly looked uncertain during a fourth in which the Knicks were held scoreless for nearly seven minutes, shot just 31.8 percent and were outscored by 14 points, turning a win into a loss.
“We were fine,” Brunson said about the fourth-quarter double-teams. “We were in the game, we were making plays, we were missing shots. I trust my teammates in those situations.
“I’m happy with what we did. Obviously we can get better with what we do, but I’m happy with what we did.”
Maybe the fourth quarter was an outlier in an otherwise encouraging season, the result of a crush of injuries that all occurred around the same time.
Maybe the injuries combined with the unique abilities of the Lakers — not every team will have Anthony Davis underneath to discourage drivers — conspired to create a one-off problem.
But if the Knicks continue playing far outmanned, it is possible other teams will pick up the blueprint on how this version of the Knicks can be defended.
Randle, Anunoby, Grimes and Robinson all have been ruled out for Tuesday’s game at the Garden against the Grizzlies.
Without much of a supporting cast, Brunson — who, despite the blitzes, scored 36 points in nearly 45 minutes against the Lakers — likely again will be asked to provide the bulk of the offense.
And it is very much possible that if so, the Grizzlies would try to force the ball out of Brunson’s hands.
Virtually everyone who has had the ball in their hands since Randle went down has taken a dip.
The Knicks have played four games since their All-Star forward dislocated his shoulder and somehow have won three.
Yet, they have shot 44.6 percent from the field, which entered play Monday as the fifth-worst in the NBA in the span, and 29.9 percent from deep, which was third-worst.
Hart’s struggles from deep — down to 30.2 percent — have mattered. So has the lack of a second-unit shot creator, a void since Immanuel Quickley was sent to Toronto.
The Knicks have been too dependent upon Brunson, who too often has had to defer and also just has not been getting the same quality of shot.
Before Randle went down on Jan. 27, Brunson was shooting a career-best 42.6 percent from 3-point range.
In the four games since — all without Randle and Anunoby and the past two without Grimes — Brunson has gone 6-for-24 (25 percent) from deep, perhaps a simple regression or perhaps a result of defenses keying on Brunson, who no longer has had a co-star to shoulder part of the load.
On Saturday, the Knicks contended that the shots were there; they just were not falling.
The sample size is still tiny, but the available numbers suggest the Knicks’ offense — beginning with Brunson — has been hurting as several of the team’s standouts hurt.
“[The Lakers] were trying to get the ball out of [Brunson’s] hands, and sometimes, it’s make-miss,” coach Tom Thibodeau said. “So go hard to the board, try to get a second shot, finish off the second shot. So I liked our shots, and we had some mistakes defensively in the fourth that we can fix, but overall thought we played pretty well.”
