After pulling off an enormous fourth quarter comeback in Game 1, the Knicks failed to repeat their performance on the Garden floor, dropping Game 2 to the Pistons and losing home court advantage in the series.

They now have two tries to turn the advantage around in Detroit, beginning Thursday with Game 3.

Here are three adjustments the Knicks should make…

Get Karl-Anthony Towns involved

New York traded two starters and a first-round pick to bring in one of the best big man shooters of all time.

After putting together a strong regular season, they made the playoffs and landed an ideal first-round matchup for him, and he questionably only attempted 11 shots in the Game 2 loss — despite playing a huge role in the series-opening win.

That obviously can’t continue. Some of it falls on Towns to be more assertive in getting the ball and making something happen, but the coaching staff also needs to adjust the game plan to put him in more ideal positions.

Detroit has been putting Tobias Harris on Towns and letting their big man help off Josh Hart, clogging the paint and giving Towns an extra help man to worry about. New York hasn’t had much of an answer outside of posting Towns and continuing to run their picks and actions to poor halfcourt results.

Tom Thibodeau needs to get more creative in mixing specific sets for Towns and letting him loose from beyond the three-point arc, where he’s only attempted five shots in two games. Running more pick and pops and inverted pick and rolls are two low hanging fruit options to watch out for. 

Jalen Brunson also needs to take responsibility as the team’s captain and floor general to make sure Towns is more involved. After missing him on multiple open pop opportunities in Game 2, expect a mindset adjustment in Game 3 to look for him early and often.

Figure out the Josh Hart problem

Detroit’s help-off-Hart strategy has been effective in two games, as New York’s halfcourt offense hasn’t looked good outside of maybe two quarters. It’s surprising that the Knicks don’t have a clear counter after teams employed this look for months, slowing New York’s offense as the season progressed.

The usual responses of isolating Towns and spamming Brunson-Hart pick-and-rolls didn’t work much in Game 2. New York will need to dig deeper into its bag, perhaps pre-screening Hart to force a switch or letting him be more of a playmaker with the ball. 

If all else fails and this just isn’t Hart’s series, Thibodeau needs to be ready and willing to play him far fewer minutes and maybe pull him from the starting five. Mitchell Robinson in his place is the better defensive and rebounding look, or they can go with a true five-out by sliding in Miles McBride or Cameron Payne. 

Slow down Cade Cunningham

The Knicks blitzed Cunningham to open the playoffs, starting OG Anunoby on him, and only playing aggressive pick-and-roll coverages to constantly send two bodies his way and force a tough pass.

This worked well to slow him down in Game 1, but after making a few adjustments, Cunningham bounced back with a 33-point performance in Game 2.

The differences were that he got fewer ball screens in general, deciding to isolate his way to buckets one-on-one. Detroit also replaced static ball screens with more off-ball action that got him going downhill before the actual screen, forcing Anunoby to fight over them on the run while exploiting his lack of guard-level speed. 

Anunoby will simply have to be better one-on-one in those situations, bump Cunningham more aggressively and not let him get to his spots. On the screens, the Knicks will need to be better prepared, as whoever was supposed to hedge or trap was often late to the play. 

They could also be more willing to switch, but Cunningham has torched everyone but Anunoby and Mikal Bridges. Whatever the fix, the rest of this series may ride on Cunningham’s play, so the Knicks will need to figure out a solution. 

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