CLEVELAND — After getting chiseled by Jalen Brunson in Game 1, the Cavaliers adopted a two-prong strategy to deal with the crafty point guard.
1) Pressure him when he has the ball.
2) Make him work on defense.
The effective approach was keyed by an adjustment from coach J.B. Bickerstaff, who essentially removed Isaac Okoro from the rotation and unleashed Caris LeVert.
Suddenly, Brunson couldn’t hide in the corner on defense. He needed to guard versatile scorers such as LeVert, who went off for 24 points in 40 minutes of Cleveland’s 107-90 Game 2 win Tuesday.
Targeting Brunson, who often struggles on defense, was intentional.
“It’s very important to have [Brunson] play on both sides of the floor,” Cavs star Darius Garland said. “Not just have him sit in the corner. So just try to put him in a couple actions, to see if he can move his feet on the defensive end. Because he’s going to have to work really hard on the offensive end against us.”
LeVert, who struggled while playing just 18 minutes in Game 1, said he was motivated by a text from Donovan Mitchell, who understood the importance of his teammate’s presence to combat Tom Thibodeau’s scheme.
“[Mitchell] let me know how much I was needed,” LeVert said, “especially with the way they were playing defense.”
There’s no easy solution to stopping Cleveland if Garland, LeVert and Mitchell are all humming like Tuesday. Mitchell, the best player in the series, only took 11 shots because it was easier to facilitate teammates facing lesser defenders like Brunson.
The next adjustment is on Thibodeau, who refuses to indulge strategy questions.
“Want to take a look at the film first,” he often repeats, as the coach did Tuesday.
The Knicks’ offense was also problematic in Game 2. Their half-court game was in shambles.
Cleveland’s approach to blitz Brunson paid off, as the point guard missed 12 of his 17 shots for 20 points — struggling especially with LeVert on the fullcourt press.
The Knicks never took advantage of the open man created by Cleveland’s double teams, whether because of missed shots (RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, Obi Toppin, Immanuel Quickley and Quentin Grimes combined hit just 2 of their 13 3-pointers), shaky ball movement (six turnovers from Julius Randle) or Cleveland simply ratcheting up the defensive intensity.
The simple fix to this equation is New York knocking down its open looks. Barrett and Grimes, in particular, should be feasting in this setup. They’ve combined to shoot 7-for-31 in the series.
“You have wide-open shots, you’ve gotta knock them down,” Thibodeau said.
After Tuesday’s game, Grimes, who has just nine points in 49 minutes of his first playoffs, tried to talk to reporters but was ushered to the team bus by Knicks PR.
Otherwise, the young players in New York’s locker room were upbeat. A big theme was the Knicks still won a game on the road, and should feel accomplished rather than downtrodden.
“We didn’t play how we wanted to but we did come in and get one, which was our goal,” Quickley said. “So now we gotta go back home and take care of business.”
Still, the circumstances of Game 2 provided the Cavaliers with the confidence of their new strategy, one that’s built around LeVert giving Brunson headaches on both sides of the floor.
“We know we can do it,” Garland said. “We saw what we can do and try to put it in the next couple games in New York. We’re really going to need us because we’re not going to have the crowd that we have here. Nobody in New York likes us right now. So it’s all on us. A statement win like this definitely gives us the confidence.”
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