Zach Lowe

He's not going to be efficient enough.

There are going to be too many turnovers.

Now,

if you want to force the ball to cat, when you're like, if he times his duck in correctly and the defense isn't ready to load up on it and he can go quickly, that's a different story.

If Brunson has not a wing on him, but a small guy on him, like a traditional point guard and you run Brunson cat pick and roll.

And that guy switches on to cat.

That's a different story than Jalen Williams or Tara Eason, but the Knicks two years in have let this scheme sort of gum them up too often.

And against the wrong opponent, it happened against the Cavs.

It happened against the thunder.

It's happened against the Celtics.

They're just not going to score enough to win.

And they have to figure it out because they need cat and they need a spacing the way he unlocks their cutting game.

It's just, it's the most interesting puzzle in the NBA to me is the Knicks against that defense.

What you're describing is the first play of the game and the Knicks ran it because they knew Houston is not starting Reed Shepard in this game.

They're starting Tari Eason over him specifically for this reason.

To switch the Brunson cat pick and roll because we're not, not only is Eason an animal and a huge wing defender, we could put wings on everyone.

So we're not switching ourselves into a disadvantage on Brunson either.

And so what cat did is I know you're going to switch.

I'm going to slip out a bit hard ahead of the switch with you on my back and I'm going to the rim.

Jalen's not going to be able to get this pass to me directly, but heart's going to be over here.