The New York Knicks pulled off a stellar comeback tonight against the Cleveland Cavaliers after trailing by 22 points with less than four minutes left in regulation. Jalen Brunson led that charge with eight minutes of excessively targeting James Harden on the defensive end, which led to a 30-8 run to eventually force overtime, where the Knicks came away with a 115-104 win.
Following the game, Mike Brown admitted that it was his brainchild to target James Harden down the stretch because his own excessive dribbling causes his fatigue.
“Yeah, sometimes you got to do what the game dictates, and they were trying to do the same thing with Jalen, and so we said, ‘Okay, you know, we feel like we could play that game.’ We try not to play that game much, but we feel like we have a guy that we can play that game with, and Jalen.”
“And so, you know, just like we have to try to figure out different ways to guard Harden and Mitchell, they got to figure out different ways to guard Jalen, but we were is no secret we were attacking Harden,” Brown said initially.
Brunson finished the game with 38 points, five rebounds, six assists, and three steals while shooting 15-29 from the field and 1-6 from beyond the arc. 15 of his 38 points came in the fourth quarter, where he was visibly targeting the matchup with Harden.
Jalen Brunson Hunting James Harden pic.twitter.com/rlyEGCbdlf
— Coach Gibson Pyper (@HalfCourtHoops) May 20, 2026
Meanwhile, James Harden struggled to find his offensive rhythm tonight, recording more turnovers (six) than field goals made (five). He ended up with 15 points, four rebounds, and three assists while shooting 31.3% from the field (5-16 FG) and 12.5% from beyond the arc (1-8 3P).
But Mike Brown also revealed that he learned this about James when he was on the Warriors as an assistant coach for over six seasons.
“It is known that Cleveland’s guards, they play 50% more minutes than our guards. And so you know, if you’re playing every other day, that could take a toll. We told our guys it could take a toll, so stay with it no matter what the score is down the stretch, but you don’t really know if it does or not. But, you know, you hope by telling your guys that it gives you a little bit of a psychological advantage.”
“I’m going to let out a secret. When I was with Golden State, we played Houston in the playoffs. Uh, we counted James Harden’s dribbles, and you know, we told our guys, hey, he’s dribbling close to a thousand times.
“He’s not doing that anymore because they got Donovan Mitchell, but at the time, we were like, he’s he’s dribbling almost a thousand times a game,” Brown said as he laughed while recalling the story.
“And you know, our high [number] guys KD was at like 300 [dribbles] or right below 300. [So we said] keep picking them up full court, keep making them dribble because at the end of the series, at the end of games, it’s going to wear them down. And did it help? Probably not, you know, but you say stuff like that to help give your guys a psychological advantage.”
Harden’s playoff journey only seems cursed at this point. In his entire NBA career, he has never missed the playoffs, but has only once gone to the NBA Finals in his nascent years in the league (2012). This is the closest he has been to reaching the NBA Finals since 2017-18, when he last played a conference finals series, so he has had to wait for this for over eight years.
So far in this postseason, Harden is averaging 19.7 points, 6.0 assists, and 5.1 rebounds while shooting 40.8% from the field and 31.8% from beyond the arc.
The 36-year-old veteran does not have a lot of chances left to potentially get a ring. He needs to step up now or be mentally prepared to be forever compared to the legends who never won a championship.
