Jalen Brunson scored on the first possession and barely slowed the Cavaliers down after that. He finished with 19 points and a playoff career-high 14 assists Thursday night as the New York Knicks beat Cleveland 109-93 in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals.
Brunson opened the game with a floater over Jarrett Allen for a 2-0 lead, then missed his next five field-goal attempts before settling into a different kind of night. He shot 7 of 16 overall and 1 of 7 from 3-point range, but the ball kept moving through him as the Knicks turned his passing into the night’s biggest edge.
That was a sharp turn from Game 1, when Brunson scored 38 points. On Thursday, he gave the Cavaliers a different problem. They loaded up on him and tried to take away his scoring chances, and he answered by finding teammates instead of forcing the issue.
“That’s what great players do, right?” Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said after the game. He said the defense was more focused on Brunson, but Brunson “made the right reads, the right plays.”
The Knicks have now won nine straight playoff games, a run that has pushed them to the brink of control in this series. Brunson’s latest performance also fit the profile that has made him the captain of the Knicks: a scorer who can shift into a distributor when the defense crowds him.
Miles McBride said Brunson’s willingness to move the ball says everything about him. “He’s about winning,” McBride said. “We knew that from the jump. Obviously, he’s one of the best scorers in the league, but the fact that he’s willing to just be selfless and give up the ball when guys are double-teaming him proves that he just wants to win.”
Mikal Bridges echoed that view, saying Brunson’s 14-assist night sent “a great message.” Bridges said it showed Brunson plays the right way even when defenses try to overload him. The Knicks have leaned on that balance all postseason, with Brunson’s scoring threat forcing teams to choose between giving him space or living with the passes that follow.
The numbers around him have only deepened the case. The NBA tweeted that Brunson had scored more fourth-quarter postseason points over the last four years than any other player, with 416 in that span. That is the backdrop for a night like this: a player known for closing games with the ball in his hands proving he can beat you by giving it up, too.
The next test comes with the series still moving through Cleveland’s answers to Brunson. If the Cavaliers keep loading up on him, he has already shown the Knicks what that can look like: points when needed, passes when the defense sags, and a team that keeps winning either way. For fans looking ahead, Knicks Game Tonight: Game 2 shifts after Brunson’s late surge in Game 1 remains the kind of storyline that now feels bigger after a win like this.
