DEFENDERS HAD SWARMED Jalen Brunson with less than 30 seconds remaining in last season’s pivotal Game 6, a first-round contest that would either bring the Philadelphia 76ers even with the New York Knicks or propel New York to the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Brunson drove left, but 76ers 7-foot center Joel Embiid walled off the paint as Nicolas Batum and Kelly Oubre Jr. chased from behind. But Brunson, in the midst of a third-straight 40-point performance, didn’t pull out one of his crafty moves to sneak by Embiid or lure another Philly defender into a foul.
Instead, the Knicks point guard swung a perfect pass to the top of the key, to the player who had been unexpectedly lighting up the 76ers during the series and who was left wide open: Josh Hart.
Hart hesitated slightly, looking to his right as he considered passing to Donte DiVincenzo (a 40% 3-point shooter that season) on the right wing. But with DiVincenzo covered, and Hart still seeing no defender in front of him, he took matters into his own hands the same way he’d been forced to for much of the series after Philadelphia made the decision to play off the 34% career 3-point shooter.
The result was an incredibly clutch 3 for Hart — his 17th of the series — that essentially sealed the Knicks’ hard-fought first-round win. “He’s put a lot of time into his shooting,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said after the game. “I always have the belief that when it’s a big shot [he’s taking] that it’s going in.”
Fast-forward nearly a year later, and that same level of belief in Hart’s less-than-steady jumper could be just as important throughout this current playoff run for New York.
You’d be hard pressed to find a player who hustles harder than Hart, who led the NBA in minutes per game under the demanding Thibodeau and has been the Knicks’ official jack-of-all-trades, routinely sacrificing his body from one play to the next while also filling out the stat sheet unlike any player on the roster. The 6-foot-4 Hart was 13th in the league in rebounding, the shortest player among that top group by 5 inches.
But, much like last postseason, it’s going to require more than effort plays from Hart to ensure that the Knicks advance. Specifically, how the 30-year-old guard fares when the Detroit Pistons dare him to shoot could be New York’s biggest playoff bellwether.
ANY GIVEN NIGHT, the hard-nosed Hart can bring the on-court action into the stands.
Earlier this month, just over two minutes into the third period as the Knicks were up double digits at home on the lifeless Phoenix Suns, Royce O’Neale rocketed an errant pass that Hart felt he could swipe.
He got a hand on the pass to knock it toward the sideline, but as Hart sprinted to chase down the loose ball, he realized he’d immediately run out of real estate. With no room, he somewhat haphazardly leaped onto the digital billboard sitting courtside before ambling five rows into the Madison Square Garden stands.
“He’s lucky that there were empty seats, so he could land somewhere safe!” play-by-play man Mike Breen said during the broadcast as a number of Knicks fans in the crowd high-fived Hart on his way back down to the floor.
Hart ranked seventh in the league in steals and 10th in deflections this season. He plays with reckless abandon, often diving onto the floor without a second thought — a massive reason he has recovered an NBA-high 88 loose balls this season. And few sights are as common as Hart in the open court, fast breaking from one coast to the other. He was highly efficient when doing so, logging one of the NBA’s 10 best field goal rates in transition scenarios.
Then there’s the tenacious rebounding and floor-general-style passing he brings. Metrics indicate that Hart holds the NBA’s highest attack rate, which measures the amount of ground a player covers during rebounding efforts compared to his normal hustle habits on court. His crash instincts on the glass are a massive part of why he’s just the second player 6-4 or shorter (after Russell Westbrook) over the past 60 years to average 9.6 rebounds or more.
“You get regular rebounds; I get rebounds that break teams!” Hart once bragged to teammate Mitchell Robinson during a playoff game.
It’s an accurate statement. During the Knicks’ Christmas Day game, for instance, with New York up three points on the San Antonio Spurs with 30 seconds left, Brunson missed a jumper that Hart dove on the floor to collect. Then, after San Antonio forced an OG Anunoby misfire, the Spurs were preparing to race down the court to get up a game-tying shot. But they couldn’t, because they hadn’t secured the rebound. Hart did, and in doing so the Knicks ran the clock out to seal the victory.
Arguably just as impressive as Hart’s rebounding ability is his secondary playmaking.
Brunson, who led the NBA in both ball possession at 8.6 minutes per game and clutch baskets with 52, is often blitzed by opposing defenses. That’s where someone like Hart — whose connective game on offense has similarities to Draymond Green‘s — comes into play. He’s a valuable player as a short roller who, after getting the ball from Brunson, normally dishes it to the corner or the dunker spot. (When Hart doesn’t pass, he has been highly efficient going to the basket, shooting a career-best 61.8% from two.) Last month, he broke Clyde Frazier’s 56-year-old franchise record for triple-doubles in a season, with nine.
In a way, it’s been a dizzying two-year stretch of do-it-all basketball for Hart. He has logged 15 triple-doubles in the past two seasons after having none during his first six years in the NBA. The only player to post more triple-doubles than Hart’s 15 after having zero through his first six campaigns is Celtics legend Bill Russell, according to ESPN Research.
“It’s funny — in college we told Josh not to pass the ball because he wasn’t good at passing,” Brunson said earlier in the season of his former Villanova teammate.
Now, though, Hart is good at everything. Well, almost everything. And the upstart Pistons are almost certain to repeatedly test the wing’s biggest weakness throughout the first round.
THE ROUTINE GENERALLY begins whenever there’s a true break in the basketball schedule.
There was the week off during last season’s All-Star break, the week off before last year’s postseason, and now, this past week before the Knicks faced the Pistons. In each case, Hart wanted to work out the mechanical kinks in what has been an inconsistent 3-point shot.
It means hundreds of extra attempts each day on his own time. “Feels solid,” Hart said of his jumper earlier this week. “I’m working in practice, getting some shots up. After practice, my friend has a court at his house, so getting up shots before practice at his house. And I’m shooting at the facility again at night or at his house again at night. So probably two or three workouts and shooting just to make sure I’m comfortable and confident with [the tweaks].”
There’s ample reason for the additional work.
For much of the season, opposing defenses opted against guarding Hart beyond the 3-point line. On average, teams gave Hart over 8 feet of space when he launched catch-and-shoot 3-pointers. Of the 157 players who took at least 175 catch-and-shoot triples, only 11 players were given more room to shoot than Hart.
Still, in a league where the average player shoots almost 40% from deep when given at least 6 feet of space, Hart shot just 34% in those situations, one of the NBA’s worst marks among qualifying shooters. It makes him a pretty obvious choice for opponents to cheat off to better stay with Brunson (44% from 3 when left open) and Karl-Anthony Towns (47%). And wings Mikal Bridges and Anunoby, who rank first and second in the league in corner-3 attempts, shoot 40% when left wide open.
The limited threat largely explains why coach Nick Nurse and the Sixers were initially comfortable taking their chances with leaving him open in last season’s first round: Ignoring him at the perimeter made it easier for Philly to trap Brunson with more defenders. It worked, as the All-NBA guard shot a combined 16-for-55 (29%) from the field through the first two games of that series.
But, much to the Sixers’ frustration, Hart’s shooting ended up being a huge boost for the Knicks in that first round. Philadelphia’s strategy all but forced Hart to take far more 3s — 47% of his shots were triples in that series, up from 33% in the regular season — but he connected on 43% of those looks, much better than the 31% he shot from deep all season.
All of which explains why this Pistons-Knicks series, and potentially New York’s postseason as a whole, figures to be so fascinating. In his four prior playoff series as a Knick, Hart’s performances from deep have fluctuated wildly: 45% in a 2023 first-round series against the Cleveland Cavaliers, followed by just 24% the following round against the Miami Heat. Hart caught fire against Philly last season before hitting just 27% against the Indiana Pacers while playing through an abdominal injury.
Simply put, it’s anyone’s guess how well he’ll shoot from one moment to the next. But performances like last season’s first-round flurry could be enough to keep playoff defenses honest and open the floor for Brunson and the Knicks’ offense. (It was far down on the list of takeaways from a highly chaotic Game 1 win, but Hart knocked down his lone 3-point try — a straight-on, 25-footer that Pistons forward Tobias Harris essentially dared him to launch.)
Thibodeau, for his part, acknowledged that playoff defenses are often more aggressive about ignoring poor shooters, but he suggested that boiling down Hart’s impact to his shooting alone would be foolish.
“At the end of the day he’s a basketball player. He’s more of a scorer than a pure shooter, but he can shoot,” Thibodeau said last week. “He’s great with the ball. He’s great on the break.
“If you’re open, shoot it. If you’re guarded, make a play. That’s what I like about him.”