The Knicks always had fatal flaws — and the Hawks just exposed them

Brunson, instead, is methodical — deliberate — working against Dyson Daniels’ pressure before even crossing half court.

Atlanta leaned all the way in: traps, blitzes, doubles near mid-court. The goal was to get the ball out of Brunson’s hands and see what happens next.

What happened next decided the game. It’s been a season-long question under Brown: What do the Knicks look like when Brunson isn’t the one creating offense? Game 2 was the clearest version yet — and the ugliest.

The Knicks unraveled possession by possession: Bridges rimmed out two threes on the same trip, Anunoby got stripped on a drive to the rim, Towns left a late-clock three short, and Bridges missed the game-winner at the buzzer.

Even their best non-Brunson possession — a Hart-to-Anunoby lob — ended with two missed free throws. Moments later, C.J. McCollum isolated Brunson and put the Hawks up three, a matchup he said he found advantageous for obvious reasons (“What do you think?” he responded after the game).

“Down the stretch we got some pretty good looks… we just didn’t convert,” Brown said. “They hit their shots. We missed ours.”

There’s another layer Brown won’t fully concede — but Thibodeau understood: The Knicks struggle when Brunson and Towns sit together.

New York led by 11 in the first quarter. Brown sat both stars early in the second. The Hawks took the lead minutes later.

It happened again in the fourth. Up 14, both stars went to the bench. By the time they returned, the lead was nine — and shrinking. The lineup Brown turned to — Miles McBride, Mitchell Robinson, Jordan Clarkson, Landry Shamet and Anunoby — had barely played together all season. It’s been effective in small samples, but Game 2 exposed the risk.

Brown didn’t see it that way.

“No, I don’t think so. We’ve played that lineup quite a bit since the end of the season, and that lineup’s been pretty good,” he said. “We weren’t good tonight and we turned the ball over a few too many times during that period.”

Thibodeau rarely let both stars sit at once. Last postseason, Brunson and Towns shared just 35 total minutes on the bench together — and those minutes were a disaster.

Through two playoff games this year, that number is already climbing. Towns didn’t put the loss on those stretches.

“The time when we were off the court wasn’t where we lost,” he said. “It was the time we were on the court at the end.”

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Even when Brunson had the ball, things weren’t right. He’s not the same late-game force he was last season.

By the NBA’s definition, clutch time is the final five minutes of a game within five points. Last season, Brunson led the league with 5.6 clutch points on 51.5% shooting.

This year: 3.6 points on 49%. The difference is subtle, but real. Brown has pushed Brunson to trust his teammates more. The tradeoff has been rhythm — knowing when to attack and when to defer.

Brunson hit a tying three with 1:21 left. Another to cut it to one with nine seconds remaining.

But too often, he dribbled deep into the clock before initiating anything — or called his own number immediately advancing the ball into the frontcourt. He was doing it again when Brown called timeout, driving into the lane as Anunoby waited, open, in the corner, flopping his arms under the ostensible realization the ball was not going to find him.

“[The late-game offense was] maybe a little stagnant. Obviously I can control what I can control,” he said after the game. “And so poor decision-making on my part in some possessions… We just got to play better with the lead. That’s twice in the fourth quarter now.”

Then there’s the most glaring issue of all: Towns isn’t touching the ball enough. It’s a layered issue that reared its head under pressure on Monday.

With 3:12 left, the Knicks clung to a one-point lead. Somehow, 6-7 Jonathan Kuminga kept the 7-foot Towns from establishing post-up position, pushing him out of the paint and into the corner.

Towns raised his hands — calling for the ball — then dropped them in frustration.

After scoring 14 in the third, he didn’t score in the fourth.

“The opportunity just didn’t come around to shoot it,” Towns said at his locker after the game. “It just didn’t find me. The opportunity wasn’t available for me in the fourth, and that’s fine.”

It’s not fine: The Hawks are thin at center. This is the matchup the Knicks are supposed to dominate. Instead, Towns has taken 13 and 12 shots in the first two games of the series.

It’s the Knicks’ most glaring flaw — and the easiest explanation if this series turns. They don’t consistently lean into their biggest advantage and haven’t prioritized him as a top scoring option consistently throughout the season. Plus Towns, in certain matchups, is neither forceful asserting himself demanding the ball nor establishing advantageous position against smaller opponents.

“KAT’s a great player, so he’s just got to impose his will on the game,” Brown said after the loss. “I don’t need to tell him every game he’s got to be aggressive. He knows we need him to do that.”

Maybe Towns knows that. Maybe his teammates do, too. But knowing and doing are two different things — and right now, the Knicks are stuck in between. In-between scoring and play-making, scoring and trusting one another. In between a timeout and letting things play out on the floor.

“We got to make sure [KAT is] involved — find him on mismatches, put him into actions, make sure we use his skill and his gravity to our advantage,” said Hart, seated next to Brunson at the post-game podium, in the chair Towns occupied one game prior. “And that’s something that we’ll look at on film and be better with.”