Knicks take 1-0 lead, Brunson 35

The Knicks didn’t just win Game 1 — they flattened the 76ers. New York beat Philadelphia 137-98 on Monday, May 4, at Madison Square Garden and grabbed a 1-0 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals. Jalen Brunson was the headline with 35 points, but the bigger story was how quickly the game stopped looking competitive. By halftime, the Knicks were up 23. Early in the third, it was basically over. New York, for 91% of the game, shot 63% from the field, hit 51% from 3, and built a lead that reached 40 points. Philadelphia shot 41% overall and never found a stretch where it could slow the game down or make the Knicks uncomfortable. This wasn’t a late pull-away — it was control, then separation, then a rout. ### What did Brunson actually do? He detonated the break and had one of those stretches where every possession felt tilted in New York’s favor. He finished 12-for-18 from the field, and his late burst in the second quarter helped turn a solid Knicks lead into a 74-51 halftime margin. When your lead guard is that clean and that efficient, the whole offense starts to look simple. Brunson? No — and that’s the part Philadelphia should worry about. Karl-Anthony Towns added 17 points, and the Knicks got the kind of balanced, low-drama support that makes Brunson even harder to deal with. New York didn’t need heroic shot-making from everybody else. It just needed enough shooting, enough spacing, and enough defensive pressure to keep the Sixers chasing. Once the Knicks had the game on their terms, the supporting cast only had to keep the machine running. ### What went wrong for Philly? The Sixers hung around for about seven minutes. Then the Knicks ripped off a 15-4 run late in the first quarter, opened the gap, and never let it close. Philadelphia’s offense got messy, the defense couldn’t contain Brunson at the point of attack, and the game kept speeding up in the wrong direction. Paul George led the Sixers with 17 points, which tells you a lot about the night — there was no counterpunch big enough to matter. ### Why does the shooting number matter so much? Because 61.4% isn’t just “hot.” It usually means the defense is losing the geometry of the floor. New York wasn’t living on desperate, contested jumpers. The Knicks were getting into the paint, forcing rotations, and turning those advantages into clean looks. When a playoff team shoots that well in a second-round game, it usually means the process was working, not just the luck. That’s the real warning sign for Philly. ### What changes in Game 2? The obvious answer is that Philadelphia has to make Brunson work earlier and harder. But the catch is that this wasn’t one tweak going wrong. The Sixers lost the matchup battle, the pace battle, and the shot-quality battle. Game 2 is set for Wednesday, May 6, in New York, and the pressure is already pretty clear — if Philly falls behind 2-0, the series starts to feel very steep before it even shifts home. ### Bottom line? Game 1 looked less like a coin-flip playoff opener and more like New York imposing a template. Brunson gave the Knicks the star turn, but the blowout came from structure — efficient offense, early control, and no letup. If that formula holds, this series could move fast.