Jalen Brunson: Knicks Can't Blame Pacers' Fresh Legs for Blowout Game 4 Playoff Loss
Jalen Brunson isn't making excuses after the New York Knicks' Game 4 loss to the Indiana Pacers on Sunday.
The Knicks star said the team's injury struggles don't give his squad a pass for the 121-89 loss.
"We can talk about fresher legs, we can give us all the pity that we want," Brunson said. "Yeah, we're short-handed, but that doesn't matter right now. We have what we have and we need to go forward with that. There's no 'we're short-handed.' There is no excuse. There's no excuse whatsoever. If we lose, we lose. That's what that was."
New York is without a handful of key players in the series after losing Mitchell Robinson to a left ankle injury and OG Anunoby to a hamstring injury. Robinson will miss the rest of the series as he is on a six-to-eight-week timeline, but Anunoby is day-to-day at this point.
Game 4 saw a sloppy performance from the Knicks' starters. Brunson was the only starter in double figures but shot a lackluster 6-of-17 from the field on his way to 18 points.
Brunson was asked if he feels like he has less burst at this point in the playoffs to which he responded, "I'm fine," according to The Athletic's Fred Katz.
Josh Hart, who has raised his level of play this postseason, wasn't his normal self on Sunday either. He had just two points and three rebounds after averaging 17.6 points and 15.3 rebounds per game through the first three games of the second-round series.
Hart took responsibility for New York's struggles, saying the loss is "on my shoulders" as "someone who brings energy, brings hustle, the kinda things I didn't do today," Katz reported.
The Knicks will hope to put back-to-back losses behind them when they return to Madison Square Garden for Tuesday's Game 5.
