There are star performances that reassure a favorite, and then there are star performances that reveal something more useful. Jalen Brunson's Game 1 belonged in the second category.
He scored 19 points in the first quarter, which is the part everyone expects from him now. Then the game bent the other way. Across the final three quarters, Brunson went 1-for-11. Normally, that is the sort of split that turns a playoff opener into a warning label. Instead, the Knicks still won 113-102.
That is the point. New York did not need Brunson to stay incandescent for the full night. It needed the rest of the structure to hold once his shot stopped arriving on schedule. For a team that has spent stretches of the season looking overly dependent on its best creator, that is a meaningful distinction.
Karl-Anthony Towns helped make the night feel sturdier than Brunson's closing line. His 25 points, including 19 in the second half, gave the Knicks a second scoring engine exactly when the game could have tightened around Brunson's misses. That does not reduce Brunson's importance. It clarifies it. The Knicks still orbit him, but they did not collapse with him once he became inefficient.
That is why the 28-point total is slightly misleading. It sounds like a standard lead-guard playoff win. The real takeaway is more specific: New York banked the early burst, survived the cold stretch, and still looked organized enough to finish the opener in control. For a team that has heard doubts about its playoff reliability, that is better news than a prettier box score.