Jalen Brunson's defense looked good in NBA Finals Game 1, but the Spurs need to hunt him more in Game 2

Shortly after the Knicks finished their NBA Finals Game 1 victory over the Spurs, a tracking stat started making the social-media rounds that San Antonio shot just 1 of 14 in the game when Jalen Brunson was the primary defender. 

NBA matchup stats are notoriously unreliable, and this one is no different. It leads you to believe the Spurs went directly at Brunson 14 times and came up empty on 13 of them, which was far from the case. It's closer to the truth that Brunson was simply the "nearest defender" for a lot of missed jumpers in the Knicks' 105-95 win.

Early in the first quarter, Stephon Castle cruised right past Brunson for an offensive rebound only to smoke the bunny put-back, for which Brunson, being the closest defender, was credited with a primary stop. 

Here's another "Brunson stop" which I think we can all agree would be more accurately categorized as a Dylan Harper uncontested airball. 

Here Brunson -- who scored a game-high 30 points in Game 1 with 13 of those coming in the fourth quarter -- does a good job of stunting down on the driver and then recovering back out to Harper, but still, this is nothing more than a closeout. It's not Brunson being asked to truly defend one on one. But he gets the credit for a primary stop again. 

If Harper had that play to do over again, he would probably shot fake and force Brunson to actually guard him off the dribble, which he is largely unfit to do. When Harper actually drove directly at Brunson earlier in the game, he completely overpowered him. 

According to Synergy, that was the one and only time the Spurs isolated Brunson in Game 1, and even this was an isolation of circumstance rather than intent. Brunson just happened to get matched up on Harper in space in transition. The Spurs didn't seek it out. 

It begs the question: Why weren't the Spurs more intentional about putting Brunson in these positions? Well, for one he's guarding Julian Champagnie and Devin Vassell whenever possible, and those aren't the guys the Spurs want playing one-on-one offense. Frankly, the Spurs don't want anyone playing too much individual offense. It's clear they want to move the ball, drive and kick, play fast and attack quickly before New York's defense can fully set rather than slowing possessions down to hunt certain matchups. 

The Cavs played it differently. They put Brunson in ball screens time after time, forcing him to switch onto James Harden. It yielded mixed results. But the Spurs don't have a dribble creator the caliber of Harden, and even when they did try to use this tactic, Brunson (and here's where he deserves a lot of credit) was effective in showing out hard enough to dam up the downward flow for just a beat, thus giving the original defender time to recover. 

Take this clip below. Champagnie goes to screen Josh Hart, but before the pick is even set Brunson is jumping out on Castle. It's such an early, aggressive show that Castle is actually forced backward, and in that one false step, Hart now has time to fight over the screen and get back in front of Castle before he turns downhill. From there, Castle has nowhere to go. 

This is one where Hart gets statistical credit for the stop, and he should. But Brunson largely blew the play up before it even got started. This is called doing your job, and Brunson did his consistently in Game 1. 

Look here as De'Aaron Fox, the closest thing to a Harden-type creator the Spurs have, aims to pull Brunson into a ball screen, but Brunson again shows so hard that Fox, pinned to the sideline, has to pass out to Champagnie. In theory, Champagnie should be open as Brunson abandoned him to jump up on Fox, but Brunson recovers so hard that he's able to get back to Champagnie and funnel him straight into Towns, who blocks the shot. 

Here, Champagnie sees Towns in a deep drop, too deep to get out to contest a 3-pointer, and figures if he can go into a quick dribble-handoff with Kornet, and Kornet can get a body on Brunson, he'll come around with a clean look. He didn't account for Brunson maneuvering so slickly over Kornet's screen, and wound up forced into this junk. 

You can see Champagnie even try to stop on a dime in the hope that Brunson would crash into him for a 3-point foul, but Brunson had the presence of mind to slam on the brakes himself. I'll say again, that stat about San Antonio shooting 1 for 14 with Brunson as the primary defender is deceiving, and I would be surprised if the Spurs don't look to make him actually serve as a primary, one-on-one defender more in Friday night's Game 2. But for what he was asked to do, Brunson did his job exceedingly well in the opener. 

That plus-1.5 defensive net rating next to Brunson's name is a result of everything we just outlined, but also that he wasn't in a lot of positions to be a negative. He stunted down on drivers, but didn't have to stop many of them because he didn't allow himself to get caught in soft switches. He made a tremendous play as the lone man back in transition to single-handedly thwart a fast break. He disrupted Victor Wembanyama's dribble and clearly impacted his errant 3-pointer at the third-quarter buzzer. 

All night long, Brunson was active, attentive, even at times disruptive on defense, mostly as an off-ball contributor, and that's all the Knicks can ask of him. It's the Spurs who need to find a way to make him do more on the ball in Game 2. How do they do that? That's for Mitch Johnson to figure out. Because as this series moves forward, if the Spurs can't successfully hunt Brunson, where can they go for consistent offensive leverage? 

Towns showed he's strong enough to stand up Wembanyama one-on-one. New York's wings, from Hart to OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Miles McBride and even Jose Alvarado and Landry Shamet are as solid as the day is long. Mitchell Robinson is an elite rim protector behind it all. Even if he didn't look like it in Game 1, Brunson is the closest thing to a weak link. If the Spurs can't break him, the whole chain stays intact. And that's going to make for some tough offensive sledding the rest of this series.