At Madison Square Garden on Thursday, two digital billboards displayed a Nike ad featuring New York Knicks star Jalen Brunson with the phrase "TOO MUCH TO PROCESS." The image, which first appeared on social media at the conclusion of the Knicks' four-game sweep of the Philadelphia 76ers, was originally conceived as a bit of light trolling of the Sixers and Joel "The Process" Embiid. Now that New York holds a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals, it functions just as well as a taunt toward the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Cleveland Stands By Its Process
After the Cavaliers blew a 22-point lead in the fourth quarter of the series opener, forward Dean Wade said, "I think our process was right tonight." The next day, coach Kenny Atkinson echoed that sentiment, adding that, according to the team's internal data, the Knicks "were in the first percentile of shot quality."
In Game 2, a 109-93 loss, the Cavaliers shot just 9 for 35 from three-point range — including 2 for 12 on open shots and 6 for 19 on wide-open looks. The players' postgame messages were strikingly uniform.
Kenny Atkinson: "I thought our process was right. Took care of the ball, offensive rebound. It wasn't a great shooting night. At the end of the day, you gotta put the ball in the hole. Tonight, we didn't."
James Harden: "We just didn't make shots. We had a lot of open shots, makeable shots. Hit a couple of those, it's a different ballgame. Throughout the entire game, our process was right."
Evan Mobley: "It was definitely the right process. There are a few possessions you want back, a few turnovers, but overall I felt like we played a pretty good game. We got open shots — that's all you can ask for."
Donovan Mitchell: "Our process was right tonight. I'm not mad at what we did offensively."
Jarrett Allen: "You're going to hear it over and over again in the locker room: The process was right. We truly believe in that. We just couldn't make shots."
The Statistical Debate
From Cleveland's perspective, the team hasn't played poorly in the conference finals — they've merely shot poorly. To illustrate their point, they note they lost the first two games of their second-round series against the Detroit Pistons before rallying. They've shot 37.6% from three-point range at home in the playoffs.
Sam Merrill and Max Strus are elite shooters who aren't likely to go a combined 1 for 11 from deep again. Everyone in the league knows that 3s are inherently high-variance shots.
Even Atkinson, however, acknowledges a gray area. Before Game 2, while discussing Cleveland's defensive strategy against Brunson, he said: "This is a real dilemma in coaching. I do think there's a point where you've kind of got to say, 'OK, the numbers don't mean as much right now, we gotta do something different.'"
That sentiment isn't all that different from what New York's Josh Hart offered about analytics after the game: "At a certain point, they're a lamppost to a drunk person: You can lean on 'em, but they won't get you home. At a certain point, you gotta have a good feel for the game."