The adage is that role players shoot better at home.
The Knicks will need that to be true if the Indy games were an indication of Jalen Brunson’s current physical capabilities.
A day later, a breakdown of every Brunson shot in Sunday’s Game 4 confirmed the eye test:
He had no lift — likely because of that sore right foot — and neither did his shot.
In fact, Brunson didn’t convert a single jumper all game — only layups. He took eight treys or midrange shots, and each one fell short. All five of his jumpers in the opening quarter hit the front of the rim.
By the third quarter, Brunson was taking wide-open 3-pointers and they still were short.
It’s the telltale sign of either tired legs or injuries.
Another is Brunson jumped an average of 2 inches shorter on his shots in Games 2 and 3 than he did during the regular season, according to ESPN’s Stats & Info.
“I’m fine,” Brunson tried to reassure in the postgame interview.
A source said Brunson’s right foot is hurting more than he’s revealing.
Add in that Indiana found a good formula with the stronger/bigger Aaron Nesmith as the shadowing defender and Brunson shot just a combined 16-for-43 (37 percent) in the last two games.
Of course, Brunson was also dealing with left foot soreness in the Miami Heat series last year and still went off for averages of 31 points and 6.3 assists on 50.4 percent shooting.
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He has the ability and chutzpah to find the angles for success, even if not at 100 percent.
But the reason the Knicks lost to the Heat last year wasn’t because of Brunson or his feet, no matter how much the point guard blames himself for the series-ending turnover at the end of Game 6.
It was everybody else on the roster, most notably Julius Randle on a bum ankle, who provided zero offense.
And now the Knicks are in a similar situation against the Pacers in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
They require a role player to step up the scoring, especially if Brunson‘s jumpers and drives aren’t at the MVP level of the previous series.
Donte DiVincenzo filled in that spot exquisitely in Game 3 with 35 points, as the Knicks nearly left Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Friday night with the gutsiest of victories.
But Andrew Nembhard saved the Pacers with the biggest shot of his career.
Then in Game 4, the Pacers focused on denying DiVincenzo and he missed 10 of 13 shots.
The lack of depth on the shorthanded roster was fully exposed, and for the first time since the playoffs began there could be valid concerns about trading two (mostly) durable players — RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley — for a fragile one — OG Anunoby.
Miles McBride and Josh Hart were also both off while shooting a combined 7-for-23.
The Knicks’ best offensive player was Alec Burks, perhaps the most obvious sign that things went awfully wrong Sunday.
And maybe it was another sign of tired legs infiltrating the roster since Burks was out of the rotation to start the series and presumably fresher.
The Knicks aren’t winning if they shoot 7-for-37 on 3-pointers like in Game 4.
“Going into the game I think we were first in 3-point percentage [in the NBA in the playoffs] so I want to take a look at what happened,” Tom Thibodeau said. “I thought we had some wide-open ones that we missed early that took the energy out of us. We can’t allow that to happen.”
But now the Knicks return home to MSG, the place they’ve won four of five in the playoffs (they’re 2-3 on the road).
They’re shooting 47.2 percent overall at the Garden in the postseason; 43.8 percent elsewhere.
Hart, in particular, seems to feed off the energy that MSG provides.
The Knicks need him and other role players to step up in the biggest game of the Knicks’ season.
In 347 NBA playoff series, the team leading 3-2 advanced 84.1 percent of the time.
That will either be the Knicks or Pacers after Tuesday night.
“We need that energy from the Garden, man, from the Knicks fans,” Hart said. “They’ve been bringing it all year, and it’s something that we desperately are gonna need on Tuesday. Like I said, obviously it’s tough to go here and have a really tough loss Friday, then short recovery time [between Friday night Game 3and a Sunday afternoon Game 4] and a blowout. So obviously those are tough.
“But this series is tied. We’re not down 0-2. We’re not down 3-1. It’s 2-2. So you gotta keep fighting. We’re going home, and we gotta bring energy.”
