PHILADELPHIA — Maybe Josh Hart is speaking tongue-in-cheek. Or maybe he’s dead serious.
Either way, he’s not concerned with any of 76ers head coach Nick Nurse’s potential adjustments.
The Sixers — who face an 0-2 deficit in their first-round playoff series against the Knicks — are a desperate basketball team largely due to Hart’s timely and unexpected three-point shooting.
Nurse’s playoff game plan has been in line with what the Knicks saw in the final two regular-season games against the 76ers: They have decided to sag off Hart, who shot just 31% from three during the regular season, and make him beat them from behind the arc.
So far, so good.
Hart made four threes in each of the first two games of this series. He hadn’t made four threes in a game the entire season.
Hart is shooting 8-of-15, or 53.3% from three-point range through the first two games of this series. He didn’t make eight threes total in the eight April games preceding the playoffs.
Will the Sixers allow him to continue pelting them, unobstructed, from downtown? Or will they switch up their game plan with the series shifting home to the Wells Fargo Center for Games 3 and 4?
“I don’t know. We ain’t worried about: We’re not focused on whatever they do or who’s playing or not playing,” Hart said after Thursday morning’s shootaround at Temple University. “We keep the focus on playing our game and if you start focusing on what the other team is doing or what they can and can’t do, then you kind of lose yourself.”
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It’s a question because Hart made it one. He’s the reason the Knicks protected home-court against a team with a clear talent advantage boasting the league’s reigning MVP.
Jalen Brunson has shot poorly (16-of-45 from the field, 2-for-12 from three-point range) against the Sixers, Donte DiVincenzo got off to a slow shooting start in Game 1 and OG Anunoby hasn’t quite found a scoring rhythm, though his defense remains at an all-world level.
Hart knew the Sixers were going to sag off of him entering the series — Nurse even disclosed as much following his team’s Game 1 loss.
The Sixers planned to trap Brunson (which they’ve done successfully), stay at home on other players and force Hart to beat them from downtown.
Hart, however, saw it coming.
It’s why he hit the lab in the days leading into this first-round matchup against the Sixers.
“Just getting up a lot of shots. Kind of working on the mechanics. I knew they were going to sag off me, which is kind of the way they played the last two games of the regular season against us,” he said on Thursday. “I knew I’d have the opportunity to shoot 6-7-plus threes a game. I just wanted to make sure I was ready for that and I’ve been putting the work in.”
Hart changed the release point on his jumper. He examined his shoulders during his shot, making sure they’re square to the rim, and made sure to check his balance before raising up for a three.
He jokingly said he used DiVincenzo — who listened in on his media availability — as motivation to improve his three-point shot. DiVincenzo set two new Knicks records this season: most threes in a game (11) and most threes made in a single season (283).
“I don’t know. I was just watching Donte this whole year, seeing how he shot the ball. Donte’s actually been rebounding for me at nights, talking to me about my mechanics, making sure I’m ready,” Hart joked. “Nah, what’d I shoot — a career-low 30 percent from three this season? When you do that you’ve got to fix it, got to tweak some things, fix some things. So that’s what I was doing.”
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The Sixers, too, must tweak some things. Joel Embiid believes his team can, and will, still win this series. Nurse believes the Knicks’ two opening victories just makes this “a little bit longer” of a series than he anticipated.
It’s clear they can’t continue to leave Hart open from downtown: Insanity is often described as doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results.
Hours ahead of tipoff of Game 3, Hart said he hadn’t given any thought to a Sixers’ change in defensive coverages. His focus remains solely on what he can do better to help his team win, regardless of any adjustments made by Nurse and his staff.
Hart specifically pointed to his turnovers in transition as an area he needs to be better, noting Embiid, Kyle Lowry and Tobias Harris have been successful stripping the ball away. Hart has turned the ball over twice in each of the two games of the series.
“I think you’ve gotta ask Nick Nurse [about changing coverages on me],” he said. “For me, it’s: You’ve got to continue to be aggressive, continue to take my shots when I’m open, continue to get out in transition, do a better job in transition of either at least getting a shot up.
“Yeah. Just playing my game. Whatever they do, they do.”
With Brunson struggling to score, the Knicks haven’t played their best basketball yet — but Hart, who is averaging 21.5 points and 14 rebounds through the first two games of this series — is peaking when it matters most.
The Knicks need to be ready because the Sixers have proven they have an answer for Brunson, and if they change their approach in how they’ve defended Hart, it could put the onus on another on the floor to score.
Nurse is sure to have something up his sleeve to swing the momentum back into his team’s favor.
And if Brunson continues to struggle from the field — which may very well be the case the entire series — it’ll continue to take more than open Hart threes, because Hart threes may not be open much longer the way he’s lit it up in the playoffs.
“Absolutely. Me, Josh and OG need just to be aggressive — Bojan [Bogdanovic], when he checks in,” said DiVincenzo. “We need everybody to be aggressive because they play so aggressively on defense. You have to be aggressive. You can’t just rely on one or two people to score.”
