Jalen Brunson makes debut in increasingly 3-point happy NBA All-Star Game
Jalen Brunson hung on the rim and swung back and forth.
Then he smiled as he got back on defense.
It was the highlight of the first career NBA All-Star appearance for the Knicks floor general. Brunson, who averaged 27.6 points and 6.5 assists through the first half of the season, lost a tie-breaker to Milwaukee’s Damian Lillard for the final All-Star starting back court spot.
He did enough damage to opposing teams for coaches to vote him in as a reserve, and Brunson came off the bench with 3:38 left in the first quarter in Indianapolis on Sunday.
Brunson played 17 minutes and 17 seconds and finished with 12 points on 12 attempts from the field. He finished with five assists, four rebounds and a steal on two-of-nine shooting from downtown.
And by the time he stepped on the floor, it became clear the NBA hosted three separate three-point competitions over 2024 All-Star Weekend.
The actual there-point contest, which Brunson lost in the first round, the 1-v-1 NBA-WNBA crossover shootout between vaunted NBA sharpshooter Stephen Curry and New York Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu — and All-Star finale on Sunday night.
The Eastern and Western Conference All-Stars combined for 289 field goal attempts on the night.
One-hundred-sixty-eight of them were three-point attempts.
That’s 58 percent of the shots in the All-Star Game that came from 24 feet or beyond.
That’s a whole lot of time spent watching the ball in the air.
Maybe it’s time for the NBA to remove the three-point line from the headliner event altogether. The most electrifying attempts came from half-court and 30-plus feet out. The NBA did not have a four-point line in this year’s event.
Nor did it have a shred of defense on display.
The East won handily, 211-186, with three players — Lillard (39), Boston’s Jaylen Brown (36), and Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton (32) — scoring 30 or more points. Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns scored 50 points on 23-of-35 shooting off the bench for the West, but Lillard took home the third-ever Kobe Bryant All-Star MVP trophy.
Both teams shot better than 50 percent from the field.
And for the first time in All-Star history, a team has scored more than 200 points in a game.
“We made a lot of threes,” said East captain Giannis Antetokounmpo. “I was unfortunate not to make one, so I’m kinda sad about that.”
“We knew what the record was, and we started going for it,” Lillard said.
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All-Star Weekend has come to its conclusion, and teams resume basketball action on Thursday.
The Knicks come out of the gate with consecutive matchups against conference rivals: in Philadelphia against the 76ers, then at home on Saturday in a nationally televised matchup (8:30 p.m. on ABC) against the Boston Celtics.
Eight of the Knicks’ next 10 games are against teams with a winning record. The Knicks went 11-20 against teams with winning records entering the All-Star break.
The Knicks play the 76ers three times over their next 10 games. They will also play Curry‘s Golden State Warriors, Donovan Mitchell‘s Cleveland Cavaliers, and both the Orlando Magic and New Orleans Pelicans during this stretch.
The Knicks have the 14th-most-difficult remaining schedule in basketball, according to Tankathon.
The eighth-seeded Orlando Magic have the easiest schedule in the NBA, the No. 7 seed Miami Heat have the third-easiest, and No. 6 Indiana has the 19th strongest schedule in basketball.
The Sixers are only a half-game behind the Knicks, who are the fourth seed in the East.
