Brunson's cold shooting is the Knicks' clearest problem

What the shooting numbers say

The Knicks came into this season with a roster built to absorb a slow start from almost anyone except their point guard. Through the opening stretch, Jalen Brunson is the one player they cannot cover for.

His field goal percentage is 39.3 percent, his 3-point percentage is 33.3 percent and his free throw percentage is 73.2 percent. All three are down sharply from last season, and the first two would be the worst marks of his career while the third would be his second worst.

That is a large enough sample of slippage to be more than noise, and it lines up with what the team's offense looks like late in possessions, when the ball is in his hands and the clock is the defense's friend.

The Knicks have not tried to hide it. Brunson has answered questions about it after practice, and his coach has been asked about it repeatedly, which is what happens when the lead guard's efficiency is the difference between a good offense and a stalled one.

Brunson's own explanation

Brunson's explanation is shorter than the stat line. Asked about the numbers, he did not reach for a theory, a mechanical adjustment or a medical excuse.

"Missing shots," Brunson said after practice Tuesday, "I normally make."

That is not a dodge so much as a refusal to build a story around a stretch he believes is temporary. He has been through cold patches before, and he talks about this one the way a hitter talks about a slump: the process is fine, the results are not.

There was a real reason to look for a cause. Brunson had surgery in the offseason to fix a tendon issue in his left wrist, and he said before the season that the recovery disrupted his normal workouts and cut down the number of shots he took.

He was asked directly how much the surgery has affected his early-season form. "Not at all," Brunson said.

The late-clock collapse

If there is one place where the numbers stop looking like bad luck, it is the end of the shot clock. That is where Brunson has built much of his reputation, and that is where this season has gone wrong.

He is shooting 26.7 percent with between 7 and 4 seconds left on the shot clock and 35.7 percent with under 4 seconds left. Last season he was at 48.8 percent and 46.6 percent in those same windows.

The team numbers are worse. The Knicks are shooting 30.4 percent from 7-to-4 seconds left and 26.5 percent under 4 seconds left, the second-worst and worst marks in the NBA.

Those possessions are usually the ones an offense uses to rescue a broken set. When the rescue fails, the failure shows up in the score, in the pace of the game and in the mood of the building.

Mike Brown's read

Mike Brown has coached some of the most efficient scorers the league has seen, and he is not treating this as a crisis of decision-making.

"He's taking the same shots as in the past," Brown said Tuesday. "In my opinion, he's just missing shots. He's taking the right shots."

Brown's argument is that the shot quality has not changed, so the fix is repetition rather than reinvention. He said the same about the rest of the roster, and he made clear he is not going to overanalyze a stretch in early November.

That is the standard coaching answer, and it also happens to match the data: Brunson's shot diet, in terms of pull-ups versus catch-and-shoot attempts and shot distance, is similar to last season, as is the share of open looks versus tightly contested ones.

Bridges is the second problem

Brunson is not the only starter whose season has started badly. Mikal Bridges has struggled badly enough that Brown has benched him during the fourth quarter in three games, including the win over the Nets.

Bridges averaged 14.4 points last season. He is averaging 6.1 points on 30.8 percent shooting, and the Knicks have needed late-game minutes from other players because of it.

Brown's public message to Bridges has been about finding something small to hold onto rather than chasing the shot. He pointed to Bridges' running and cutting as the parts of his game that do not depend on the ball going in.

The two problems feed each other. When the point guard's late-clock shots are not falling and a starter is being pulled in the fourth quarter, the Knicks end up playing close games with lineups they did not plan to use.

Why this should not last

The case for patience is straightforward. Brunson's shot profile has not changed, his late-clock drop is the kind of variance that tends to regress, and his coach is deliberately avoiding a mechanical overhaul in the first weeks of the season.

The case for concern is that the Knicks do not have much margin. Their offense late in games is built around one player's ability to make difficult shots, and when those shots miss, the possessions look stagnant even when the process is the same.

The most useful test is not the percentage itself but the shot quality behind it. If Brunson keeps taking the same attempts and the same share of open looks, the makes should return. If the Knicks start hunting different shots out of frustration, the problem becomes structural.

For now, the honest summary is that the Knicks are being beaten by a shooting slump at the position where they can least afford one, and the people closest to it are treating it as something that will correct itself.