If you leave Josh Hart open, not only is he going to make you pay.
He’s going to tell you about yourself and your team’s defensive game plan.
That was the Philadelphia 76ers’ grand idea: to make life difficult on Jalen Brunson at the expense of their attention to Hart, who was the beneficiary as the open man time and time again in the Knicks’ 111-104 victory in Game 1 on Saturday.
Hart shot 4-of-8 from downtown and tied Brunson for a team-high 22 points in the playoff opener. He made three threes in the fourth quarter alone.
“I was saying a bunch of stuff. Some expletives. So tell my mom and dad sorry for the language,” he said after the game. “It was just the passion that I play with. I knew I was going to be left open, disrespected on the three-point line, and if you base it off numbers in the regular season, I think I shot like 30 percent.
“So it’s a smart game plan. For me, it’s just continue to take shot. I made my first one and missed my next four. And normally I would have just been hesitant. But just continue to shoot, continue to shoot. Make them respect me.”
Hart knew his ability to reliably space the floor would be imperative in the playoff, no matter who the Knicks drew in the first round.
And when the Knicks drew the 76ers, he knew New York’s first-round opponent was going to its length to impact the 6-foot-2 Brunson offensively. He knew the Sixers would send more than one player on defense in an attempt to trap the Knicks All-Star guard.
And in the event they did send two to Brunson, Hart knew more than likely, the defender wasn’t leaving the lights-out shooter or the seven-footer near the rim.
The defender attempting to trap Brunson was going to leave Hart, who was susceptible to struggling from three-point range over different pockets of the regular season.
Hart was ready.
The starting Knicks forward scored a team-high-tying 22 points and shot four-of-eight from downtown to go with 13 rebounds on the night. For reference, Hart finished the regular season with only 10 games with three triples made and never made more in a game this year before Saturday.
“It felt great. The last two games of the regular season, our season series, [Sixers head coach Nick Nurse’s] game plan was just to play off me and dare me to make shots,” Hart said after the victory. “I knew that as soon as they won [Wednesday’s Play-In game against Miami]. And I knew it would be the same thing with [Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra] if Miami won it.”
Hart’s three-point shooting was in question for this series. His regression from behind the arc during the regular season was notable.
Hart shot 51.9 percent from downtown in the 25 games he played after arriving in New York at last season’s trade deadline. This season, he shot just 31 percent from three: a 20 percent decline establishing the second-worst shooting clip of his career.
The veteran Knicks forward said he locked in on his three-point shooting in practice leading into their Game 1 victory.
“So that’s something I knew I had to focus on,” he said. “This whole week was just getting up shots, pre-practice, post-practice. Going back at night. Just getting up shots, getting up reps. So I knew it was going to be that way: Open shots. Fortunately I was able to knock them down.”
He’s going to need to lock-in even more. The Sixers will live and die on a 31 percent shooter morphing into a 50 percent marksman under pressure one time.
But can he do it again? Can Hart continue to make the Sixers pay from deep if they help off him to keep Brunson in check?
The star Knicks guard shot just 8-of-26 from the field in Game 1, so he’ll need all the help he can get, even if it doesn’t come from Hart on the three-point line.
“I don’t wanna overlook his contribution because he was a monster throughout,” said head coach Tom Thibodeau. “Big rebounds, tough defense, hustle plays, big shots at the end, coming up with loose balls. And that’s what this is. You gotta show toughness. “