Foul trouble is not something Jalen Brunson usually struggles with.
But it’s become a problem in recent games.
He picked up his fifth foul with 10:05 left in the fourth quarter of the Knicks’ 138-135 Game 1 overtime loss to the Pacers on Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden.
He had to sit until the 5:00 mark as a result, and was subsequently forced to play cautiously the rest of the quarter and overtime.
In the Knicks’ Game 5 loss to the Celtics, Brunson fouled out early in the fourth quarter after picking up five fouls in the third quarter.
Prior to that game, he had only fouled out four times in his career — and never in the playoffs.
The fouls have come on both ends.
“It’s just me being smart and understanding, offensively and defensively, what I have to do better,” Brunson said Thursday. “It is what it is, you just gotta be smart.”
Does he think he’s being officiated differently than he had been previously?
“If they call a foul, it’s a foul,” Brunson said. “Whether we challenge it or not, it is what it is.”
It appeared Tyrese Haliburton committed a double-dribble prior to his game-tying shot at the end of the fourth quarter to send Game 1 to overtime.
While driving to the rim and before he stepped back in a failed effort to get behind the 3-point line, Haliburton grabbed the ball with two hands before resuming his dribble.
But in its Last Two Minute Report released Thursday, the NBA said that it was a correct non-call.
“Haliburton briefly loses control of the ball after it is deflected by [Mikal] Bridges,” the league said in the report. “He then legally dribbles, gathers the ball, and takes two steps into his shooting motion.”
On replay, it is not obvious that Bridges did, in fact, touch the ball.
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Refs also appeared to miss a goaltending call on Myles Turner that would have given the Knicks a six-point lead with 2:53 left in overtime.
But because it was not in the last two minutes of overtime, the play was not reviewed by the league in the report.
The only two incorrect calls, per the report, benefitted the Knicks.
The league said Karl-Anthony Towns should have been called for a foul on Aaron Nesmith with 1:57 left in overtime and that Bridges should have been called for a foul on Obi Toppin with 15.6 seconds left in overtime.
Bridges thought the Knicks took their foot off the gas during their fourth-quarter collapse.
“You can’t relax with them, and I think that’s what happened in the last five minutes,” Bridges said. “We got the lead and we were doing well, just once you relax that little bit they take full advantage.”
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