The Pistons won a playoff game on Monday for the first time since May 2008, writes Chris Herring of ESPN, hanging onto a fourth-quarter lead in Madison Square Garden to defeat the Knicks by a score of 100-94 and even up their first-round series at one game apiece.
Detroit made just 44.6% of its field goal attempts, including only six shots from beyond the arc, but won the game with strong defense and free throw shooting. The Pistons went 28-of-34 from the foul line, compared to 16-of-19 for New York, prompting Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau to speak after the loss about how the game was called.
“Huge discrepancy in free throws. Huge,” Thibodeau said. “I don’t understand how, on one side, there are direct line drives with contact that just aren’t being called. Look, I really don’t give a crap how they call the game as long as it’s consistent on both sides. But if (Cade) Cunningham‘s driving, and there’s marginal contact that gets him to the line, then Jalen (Brunson) should be getting to the line.”
By the end of the game, Brunson had gone to the free throw line 11 times – compared to 12 for Cunningham – and Ausar Thompson, the primary defender on the Knicks’ point guard had fouled out. However, as Madeline Kenney of The New York Post observes, the Knicks didn’t shoot a free throw until the second quarter and took 11 of their 19 tries during the fourth quarter.
Despite the complaints from Thibodeau and the MSG faithful, who booed and chanted derisively at the referees throughout the game, Brunson said after scoring 37 points that the officiating wasn’t the reason why the Knicks lost.
“Regardless if fouls are being called or not called, we’ve got to adjust and I feel like we did that a little too late into the game,” he said, per Brian Mahoney of The Associated Press. “And so regardless of how it’s reffed, we’ve got to adjust and we’ve got to adapt to that and go on from there.”
Here are a few more Knicks-related notes from Monday’s loss:
- Given the price the Knicks paid to acquire him last summer, Mikal Bridges will find himself under a bright spotlight this spring. As Stefan Bondy of The New York Post writes in a subscriber-only article, Bridges is off to a slow start in the postseason — after sitting out most of the fourth quarter during Saturday’s Game 1 comeback, he went 0-of-4 from the field in the final four minutes of Monday’s loss, including missing a game-tying three-point attempt with 12 seconds left.
- Bridges wasn’t the only Knicks wing who struggled in Game 2. After a huge Game 1 performance, OG Anunoby scored just 10 points and went 0-for-4 on three-point shots in Game 2, Kenney writes for The New York Post. Anunoby also wasn’t as effective as he was in Game 1 at slowing down Cunningham, who scored 33 points on Monday. “They were running stuff to get me off of his body,” Anunobdy said of the Pistons’ Game 2 strategy. “Setting screens to get me off of him, doing stuff like that. They made some adjustments, we’re gonna make some adjustments ourselves.”
- The Knicks will likely need more from Karl-Anthony Towns offensively in order to bounce back in the series, writes Jared Schwartz of The New York Post. The big man scored just 10 points, tied for his second-lowest mark of 2024/25, and didn’t attempt a shot in the fourth quarter of Game 2, though Thibodeau said he didn’t have a problem with that. “(Towns) was getting touches, but he’s making the right play,” the Knicks’ coach said. “If he’s getting double-teamed, I don’t want him just shooting the ball over three people. That makes no sense to me.”
- Thibodeau was more concerned about the Knicks’ issues on the glass. Despite missing injured big man Isaiah Stewart, the Pistons out-rebounded New York by a 48-34 margin, with 12 of those Detroit boards coming on the offensive end. “The rebounding was problematic the whole night, so that’s probably the whole game,” Thibodeau said, according to Kenney and Zach Braziller of The New York Post. Towns added that the Knicks need to match the Pistons’ intensity for “50/50 basketballs.”
For the record, its round 1 of the playoffs and Thibs has already cut his roster down to 7 rotation players. He actually thinks he can run 7 guys for the next month. How he still has a job is beyond me. Incompetence 100%.
I don’t know if this was designed or not, but Davey have you noticed that an older team like our Warriors has 2 or 3 days off between games?
I noticed that and thought wow, they’re really helping the dubs out here.
Notice how great Curry played with all the rest he got. Brunson playing 44 minutes last night cost the knicks not the refs. You could see how tired he was getting in the 4th quarter. Thibs always over plays his players.
Gary, there was quite a bit of chatter about that online, that the Warriors were losing games on purpose so they can land this Rockets series with all the rest days. When they talk about the FO doing work, spotting that is all on them. It took a huge risk in losing games to avoid the Clippers or Nuggets in R1, but it paid off.
If GSW can keep HOU in the halfcourt, this will be an easy sweep. If HOU can start controlling the game tempo, it will go longer. GSW defense (including Steph in the primary unit) got turned up like 5 levels from “damn good” in the last 20 games of the reg season to “ethereal” in G1. Once we got towards the end of 1Q, my jaw was on the ground with how good the defense was, and Kerr actually using Gui correctly paid off, he was a huge part of all the defense units cooking. Dropping the 1-3-1 rotation was just icing. Brilliant all round. Keep it up.
Why do you even respond to his nonsense. Nothing wrong with being critical. This non doesn’t talk ball. Internet commando…
Here’s the whole thing with the refs. They make horrendous calls all the time. Every team benefits, and every team draws the short straw at times. Get over it.
I know the Warriors benefit quite a bit and watching the Houston game I can’t believe some of the calls Jimmy was getting !!
But that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Stars get calls, popular teams move on, whatever.
As far as the Knicks, Jalen Brunson is such a flopper on offense. He’ll draw the foul better than almost any guy. He gets plenty of favorable whistles. I’ll tell you that right now, but as I said, so do a lot of guys. you just have to roll with it and quit whining.
Some of these guys quickly forget this is an entertainment business. Nobody upstairs gives a rip who wins or not. It’s how much money was made and are the fans interested?
These players get paid handsomely and so do the coaches. Quit whining.
Gary I disagree, GSW/Steph gets murdered by the refs every single game. SGA gets calls on the exact same plays that Steph does not get. The Rockets are straight up tackling Steph on every play – that’s not hoop. Call Currys fouls!!!
As to fouls I thought Brunson was flopping all over the place in the 4th just trying to draw fouls. Don’t get me wrong, I think Jalen’s the best clutch closer in the NBA.
Yes, agreed on both points and I just wrote almost the same thought right as you did. And agreed that the guy is an amazing player and I respect him a lot.
It was actually embarrassing to watch. I don’t have a dog in the fight but found myself rooting against the Knicks because some of that stuff was just blatant flopping and a bad look for the game
Foul hunting can win games. But it also looks horrible when the defense isn’t jumping at everything. Jalen is a great player, but that hunting/flopping looks bad.
Flop to win
Strange that Thibs didn’t note that the Pistons had 2 more fouls (24) called against them than the Knicks (22).
But never let facts get in the way of a story.
Yes, exactly and I’ve never once heard our Warriors coach complaining that,
“We received way more foul calls than our opponent, leading to a win. It was unfair and should be fixed.”
Never heard that once.
Knicks got away with numerous holds on CC. Refs do not call fouls in the playoffs. Neither team were getting the ticky tack fouls.
If you are already crying about referees and lack of calls against your team, then you aren’t doing your job as a coach to setup your team and more specifically your star player(s) to do their job. It’s always been a cope out with any team. Also, hard to argue the FT discrepancy when KAT doesn’t show up and is a soft big. Thibs’ anger should be directed at KAT and not the referees.
Flop & whine
Thats all knicks know how to do
If they want free throws, maybe Towns should go inside when guarded by Tobias Harris instead of hanging out at by the three point line.
It’s the playoffs and guess what? Towns is still soft.
Not a huge Kat guy but he was awesome last year in the playoffs
Thibs is great but it’s over for him in NY. Too many good players on this roster to come up short.
In some ways Brunson is the worst thing to happen to this team. Covers up all their problems by overachieving. But 1 man cannot win a title by himself…
Who do you replace him with? There are some really good coaches out there deserving of this spot.
If discrepancy in free throw attempts alone meant victories, the Lakers would go 80-2 every year.
DET has been the more physical team for most of the first two games, and that, with modern officiating, means they’ll get more calls. NYK need to change that template quickly or they’ll likely lose this series. Simple, CC needs to hit the ground at least once for every time Brunson does, and just absorb those as obvious fouls.
Rebounding was the entire game, but a disparity like that doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s part of the physicality battle. NYK are losing it, and that’s particularly disturbing in their case because that was (until this year) an essential component of the team’s identity. Thibs has to do more than comment on the rebounding statistic to the media. He needs to fix it on the court, or at least try. It’s certainly not scheme. It also doesn’t appear to be effort. So, it’s personnel. He needs to give Mitch more minutes, and, if needed, use Achiuwa.