Jalen Brunson needs help on offense

Jalen Brunson gave it everything he had Friday night in San Antonio. The Knicks superstar point guard scored a career-high 61 points in the 130-126 overtime loss to the San Antonio Spurs. Unfortunately for New York, Victor Wembanyama scored a career-high 40 points and tied a career-best with 20 rebounds.

Brunson put together an incredible performance, hitting 25 of 47 field goal attempts, 5-for-13 from three, and a perfect 6/6 from the foul line. The first-time All-Star has had an amazing season, but he could use more offensive help from his teammates. JB has shown he can shoulder the offensive load, but he is being asked to do a lot on a game-to-game basis.

In the Knick’s last ten games, Brunson is averaging 31.8 points while attempting 25 FGAs per game. As mentioned before, on Friday night, Brunson took 47 shots. In March, only six players attempted more shots than the Knick’s guard. Compared to everyone on the top ten list for FGAs in March, Brunson has significantly fewer minutes than all of them.

Just to point out how many shots he’s had to take, here’s a minute breakdown and the FGAs of the players in front of him: (Stats found via NBA.com)

• Dejounte Murray: 14 GP, 532.5 MIN, 316 FGA
• Luka Doncic: 13 GP, 488 MIN, 304 FGA
• De’Aaron Fox: 14 GP, 503.8 MIN, 298 FGA
• Jalen Green: 14 GP, 517.8 MIN, 292 FGA
• Anthony Edwards: 14 GP, 499.1 MIN, 289 FGA
• Kevin Durant: 15 GP, 552.7 MIN, 286 FGA
• Jalen Brunson: 12 GP, 367.2 MIN, 270 FGA
• Dalano Banton: 17 GP, 525.2 MIN, 270 FGA
• Kyrie Irving: 14 GP, 499 MIN, 266 FGA
• Jayson Tatum: 13 GP, 471.5 MIN, 264 FGA

As you can see, JB has played fewer games and minutes than everyone else on this list.

Knicks March Stats

The Knicks have four players averaging double-digit points in March. After Brunson’s 28.7 points, shooting guard Donte DiVincenzo is second on the team with 19.5 points.

Donte is shooting 38.1 percent behind the three-point line but only 42.2 percent on field goal attempts.

Miles McBride has had three games with 26 or more points in his last six games but shot a poor 3-for-9 on Friday night. He’s started to flash more offensive games recently, but the Knicks could use a consistent 12–16 point average from him on a game-to-game basis.

Josh Hart is scoring 10.7 points per game. Although he has averaged 11.6 rebounds and 6.3 assists, it would be nice to see him consistently score the ball. The do-it-all forward is only shooting 26.3 percent from three in March.

Like McBride, Isaiah Hartenstein had a good stretch scoring the ball. The seven-foot center has scored at least 13 points in four of his last six games. Brunson could’ve used that Friday night, as Hartenstein only put seven points on the board. Knicks big man Precious Achiuwa is averaging 9.2 points in the third month of the year, but he has seen his minutes fluctuate all over the place.

Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks continue to be disappointing. Bojan is only scoring 8.8 points this month while hitting 39.8 percent of his FGAs and 32.1 percent from three. Burks has missed New York’s last three games, but he’s averaging 7.1 points on bad shooting percentages.

Mitchell Robinson has scored seven and eight points in his two games since returning. Even in the three games OG Anunoby played in March, he put up 14, 12, and two points.

Somebody aside from Brunson will have to consistently score the basketball for the Knicks to have any hope of a deep playoff run.

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