After New York’s loss to visiting Detroit in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series on Monday — a defeat that handed the precocious Pistons home-court advantage in the best-of-seven set, which resumes Thursday in Game 3 at Little Caesars Arena — Brunson fielded a question about how he’d assess his offensive performance in the defeat.

The New York Knicks traded six first-round picks, another pick swap, Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo last summer for Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges. Suffice to say, they did not deal that much for these two guys to combine for zero points in the fourth quarter of a tight playoff loss.

The Pistons were shorthanded in the middle, missing their hard-nosed center Isaiah Stewart, leaving them to find a way to try to keep Karl-Anthony Towns from taking over. But it turned out that the Knicks did it for them.