Knicks’ anemic offense outside Jalen Brunson hands them first loss of the season to Heat

MIAMI – Mike Brown has often repeated that the Knicks defense is ahead of the offense. And Sunday’s 115-107 defeat was reinforcement. 

The defense wasn’t good. But the offense was anemic. It barely existed outside of Jalen Brunson. 

The game was lost at the end of the third quarter and beginning of the fourth, when Brusnon went to the bench and the Heat launched an 11-0 run. The Knicks went 4 1/2 minutes without scoring. 

By the time Brunson returned with nine minutes left, the point guard was cold and the Knicks were toast. A brief momentum of resuscitation to cut the deficit to single digits in the final minutes was too little, too late.

Andrew Wiggins hit the dagger trey for Miami with 1:20 remaining. 

So the first road game of the Brown era was also its first loss. The Knicks shot just 38.8% from the field and 27.8% on treys. Brunson had 37 points, but needed 26 shots to get there. Karl-Anthony Towns rode the struggle bus with just 15 points in 31 minutes. He missed six of his eight 3-pointers.

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Josh Hart again lacked confidence in his shot, attempting just five from the field in 22 minutes while missing badly on his 3-pointers. 

Norm Powell led the Heat (2-1) with 29 points. 

Brown declared in preseason he’ll give up on games early in garbage time, and that never happened.

The Knicks trailed by as many as 18 midway through the fourth quarter, but they hung around long enough for the coach to maintain a grip on the rope.

With Miles McBride unavailable for personal reasons – a league source said there was a death in the family – Ariel Hukporti rejoined the starters Sunday for a taller configuration.

But it was largely a nonfactor as Hukporti managed just 10 scoreless minutes.

McBride’s absence was felt as the reserves struggled with just 21 combined points and ended the third quarter with a dud.

The Knicks were operating on less sleep Sunday after arriving in Miami at roughly 2 a.m., league sources said, several hours after they were supposed to land from the airport in Westchester.

The reason was a medical emergency involving a member of the flight crew, sources said, which occurred before the plane took off.