Jalen Brunson perimeter shooting flaws show up when Marcus Smart gets into his body before the screen arrives. Not in warmups. Not on a clean catch. They appear when Brunson has to carry a defender on his hip, feel Deandre Ayton waiting at the level of the screen, and still decide whether the jumper is the right answer with the clock chewing toward five. That is the Lakers’ bet. J.J. Redick wants Brunson brilliant from uncomfortable places. He wants the Knicks’ heartbeat dragged two steps farther from the paint.
Yet the trap only turns cruel if Los Angeles can punish the miss. That brings the whole thing back to Luka Dončić, whose blockbuster move from Dallas to Los Angeles reshaped the West and gave the Lakers a transition engine unlike anyone else on the roster. If Luka’s hamstring limits that engine, Brunson’s misses lose some of their sting. If Luka can run, every long rebound becomes a threat.
The miss has to hurt
A Brunson pull-up three does not automatically help the Lakers.
That sounds obvious. It still matters.
If Brunson misses and the Lakers walk into a slow half-court set, New York can live with the trade. Brunson can jog back, organize the defense, talk through a matchup, and start the next possession from the same emotional ground. That kind of rhythm suits him. He likes repeated contact. He likes testing the same coverage until the defender gives him a shoulder.
With Luka healthy, the equation changes.
A long rebound becomes danger. Dončić does not need to sprint like a wing to punish it. He gets the outlet, walks the ball into the middle third, and makes every Knick choose before the defense sets. Karl-Anthony Towns has to locate Ayton. Josh Hart has to find a body. Brunson has to turn from shot-maker into transition firefighter.
Because of that, the Lakers’ defensive plan depends on offense more than it first appears. They can force the right shot and still fail if the miss does not carry pain. Redick is not just asking Brunson to shoot. He is asking Brunson to shoot, miss long, and watch Luka turn that miss into punishment.
This is not a non-shooter trap
Let’s be clear: this is not Ben Simmons territory.
Brunson can score from everywhere. He averaged 26.0 points and 6.8 assists during the 2025-26 regular season, and his three-point mark sat at 36.9 percent. That number does not scream weakness. It does, however, give a disciplined defense room to bargain. It also marked a dip from his 38.3 percent clip in 2024-25, which makes the Lakers’ bet feel less like a gimmick and more like a pressure test.
The Lakers are not leaving Brunson alone.
They want a specific jumper. Not the clean catch-and-shoot look after Towns bends the floor. Not the rhythm pull-up after Brunson has already touched the paint. They want the other one: the above-the-break three after Smart has ridden him sideways, Ayton has shown size, and LeBron has shaded the pass without fully committing.
That is where Jalen Brunson perimeter shooting flaws become less about shooting talent and more about shot quality.
Brunson’s best threes usually come after the defense fears the drive. Los Angeles wants to reverse the order. Make him feel the jumper before the lane opens. Make the paint feel expensive, Make the first advantage arrive late or not at all.
New York just warned the league
The Lakers cannot treat Brunson like the only live wire.
New York just made that impossible. In the current 2026 playoffs, the Knicks hit 25 three-pointers in a Game 4 demolition of Philadelphia, tying the NBA postseason record. They also matched playoff marks with 11 threes in one quarter and 18 in one half. Brunson hit six. Miles McBride hit seven. Hart and Landry Shamet added four each.
That game changes the scouting report’s tone.
Step too far toward Brunson, and the corner opens. Lunge at the ball, and Towns pops into daylight. Stare at Brunson’s dribble, and Hart crashes from the weak side like a loose ball has insulted him. The Knicks no longer need every possession to end with Brunson making something out of nothing.
So the Lakers have to live on a blade.
They must crowd Brunson without insulting New York’s shooters. They must show bodies without creating easy kickouts, They must make his jumper feel available while making every other option feel watched.
Smart versus the hip jail
Smart’s job sounds simple until Brunson puts a shoulder into him.
Brunson does not beat defenders only with footwork. He beats them with strength. He gets low, wedges his hip into the defender’s thigh, and turns contact into a steering wheel. Once he traps a defender behind him, he does not need to be faster. He just has to keep the defender in jail.
That is the scary part for Smart.
Against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the Lakers could load bodies into driving lanes and ask Smart to bother the first move. Shai wins with length, glide, and hesitation. Brunson wins differently. He wins with leverage. He plays like a point guard with a post player’s base, He absorbs contact, keeps his dribble alive, and uses his backside to lock a defender out of the play.
Smart can handle strength. Few guards enjoy the fight more. Still, Brunson’s hip jail raises the stakes because one small mistake turns Smart from disruptor into passenger. If Smart lands on Brunson’s back, the possession belongs to New York. Ayton has to step up. The corner leans in. Towns waits above the break. Hart starts sniffing out a rebound.
Smart has to win before the jail forms.
He needs chest pressure early. He needs to shade Brunson away from his left-hand comfort, He needs enough legal contact to make the screen arrive higher, later, and uglier, He cannot reach. Brunson will punish the swipe. He cannot overplay. Brunson will spin him into a help rotation.
The goal is not a steal.
The goal is to rob Brunson of the first clean angle.
Ayton has to meet him at the level
Ayton cannot hide in the restricted area.
If he drops too deep, Brunson walks into the elbow. If he jumps too high, Towns turns the floor into a four-on-three. The Lakers need Ayton at the level of the screen, showing enough size to delay Brunson while staying close enough to recover.
That is a hard job.
Ayton must make Brunson shoot over length without opening the pass behind him. He has to raise the release point. He has to make the pull-up feel crowded, He has to retreat at the right instant, because Towns needs only a sliver of space to punish a late recovery.
In the clean version, Smart rides Brunson into Ayton’s shadow. Ayton shows his chest. Smart reconnects. LeBron shades the next pass. The possession does not collapse. It ages.
That matters.
Brunson thrives when the first action creates the first advantage. Los Angeles wants the first action to create delay. The jumper might drop, but Smart and Ayton have already taken away the rhythm that usually makes it feel inevitable.
LeBron should guard the next decision
LeBron should not spend this matchup chasing Brunson around screens.
That wastes him.
At 41, LeBron’s defensive value lives in anticipation. Fans know the image. He stands one pass away, torso angled toward the ball, left hand pointing a teammate toward the corner while his eyes never leave the driver, He does not guard one man in those moments, He guards the next decision.
That is the role the Lakers need.
Let Smart absorb the first hit. Let Ayton sit at the screen level, Let Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura stay glued to shooters. Then let LeBron become the shadow: fake at Brunson’s gather, clog the pocket pass for half a beat, and recover before the kickout becomes clean.
This is where the Lakers can make Brunson feel crowded without sending a full trap.
A Brunson pull-up over one defender feels clean. A Brunson pull-up with LeBron leaning into the corner of his vision feels different. The gather tightens. The passing window narrows. The shot leaves his hand with less comfort.
That is the kind of pressure Los Angeles needs. Quiet pressure. Veteran pressure. Pressure that does not open three other doors while closing one.
The shot clock has to bite
The Lakers need the clock to become part of the coverage.
Brunson wants time. He wants the first screen, the rejected screen, the return screen, the shoulder bump, the pivot, the big’s hesitation, and the helper’s mistake. Give him 15 seconds, and he writes the possession in his own handwriting.
Give him five, and the letters shake.
Los Angeles should not trap every early screen. That gives New York simple reads. Instead, the Lakers need layers. Show at the level. Recover. Switch late. Peel back. Make Brunson restart. Force the second action to arrive with seven seconds left and Smart already leaning into his airspace.
That is how Jalen Brunson perimeter shooting flaws turn visible.
A rhythm three at 16 seconds feels different from a bailout three at four. A pull-up after paint pressure feels different from a pull-up after two bodies forced the ball sideways. The box score records both as three-point attempts. The game knows the difference.
New York turns mistakes into oxygen
The Knicks put the Lakers in a pick-your-poison bind.
Brunson punishes single coverage. Towns pulls Ayton away from the rim. Hart turns long rebounds into fresh 24-second chances. McBride punishes lazy closeouts. Mikal Bridges cuts when defenders stare. OG Anunoby, when healthy, adds another wing who can defend, shoot, and live without play calls.
That makes every help decision dangerous.
Step toward Brunson too early, and the corner opens. Stay home too rigidly, and he gets into the paint. Send Ayton too high, and Towns slips free. Forget Hart, and a forced miss becomes another Knicks possession with the Lakers already scrambling.
The Lakers cannot defend Brunson like an isolated math problem.
They have to defend the ecology around him.
That is why Jalen Brunson perimeter shooting flaws offer an opening, not a solution. Smart cannot gamble himself out of the play. Ayton cannot chase Towns without cover behind him. Reaves cannot lose McBride while watching Brunson dance. LeBron cannot spend every trip cleaning up three mistakes at once.
One wrong step becomes a corner three.
Two wrong steps become a Knicks run.
Biography does not defend the jumper
Brunson has become the face of every guard who heard the same old scouting report.
Too small. Too slow, Too dependent on craft, Too much footwork, not enough burst.
Then he became the pulse of New York.
He turned pivots into punishment. He made shoulder bumps feel like a language, He dragged the Knicks into late-spring relevance and gave Madison Square Garden the one thing it craves most: a closer who looks comfortable with everyone watching.
That story matters to fans.
It does not matter to a playoff scouting report.
The Lakers are not defending a biography. They are defending angles. They are looking at the height of Brunson’s release, They are looking at how much cleaner his jumper gets after he pins a defender on his back, They are looking at where the ball goes when he sees a second body but not a full trap.
That may sound cold. Playoff defense usually sounds cold when translated honestly.
Brunson’s greatness comes from control. He makes chaos slow down. The Lakers want to steal that control early enough that the jumper becomes the answer New York accepts, not the weapon New York chooses.
The possession Redick wants
Picture it late.
Smart meets Brunson above the arc before the screen arrives. He shades left, absorbs the shoulder, and keeps his chest square enough to avoid becoming a passenger. Brunson tries to wedge the hip. Smart gives ground without giving up the angle. Ayton waits at the level, high enough to bother the pull-up and low enough to recover toward Towns.
LeBron stands one pass away.
His left hand points Reaves toward the corner. His eyes stay on Brunson’s gather. Hachimura checks Hart before Hart can turn the baseline into a crime scene. The Knicks run the first action and get nothing clean. The ball kicks out. Seven seconds remain.
Now the desperation screen comes.
Too late.
Brunson takes one hard dribble. Smart rides him sideways. Ayton’s length sits in front of the release. LeBron shades the pass without abandoning the shooter. Brunson rises from beyond the arc, taking the kind of jumper Los Angeles has spent the whole night trying to manufacture.
The shot might fall.
Brunson has spent years making smart defenses look foolish. He can turn a dead possession into a fist pump. He can take the exact jumper the Lakers want and bury it anyway. That is why New York trusts him.
Still, playoff math rewards repetition. If Los Angeles can create that shot again and again, the series starts to bend. If Dončić can run, the miss becomes a wound, If he cannot, the Lakers may win the possession and lose the larger exchange.
That is the thin line.
Jalen Brunson perimeter shooting flaws are not a verdict. They are a pressure point. The Lakers can press it with Smart’s first contact, Ayton’s screen-level discipline, LeBron’s weak-side brain, and Luka’s transition punishment. The Knicks can answer with Towns’ spacing, Hart’s chaos, McBride’s shooting, and Brunson’s stubborn refusal to let a defense write his ending.
The question is not whether Brunson can shoot.
The question is whether Los Angeles can make the right shot feel wrong for seven games.
Also Read: Jalen Brunson’s Playoff Legacy: Can He Carry the Knicks to the Finals?
FAQ
1. Why are the Lakers targeting Jalen Brunson’s perimeter shooting?
They want Brunson taking rushed threes before he bends the defense. That shot gives Los Angeles a pressure point.
2. Is Jalen Brunson a bad three-point shooter?
No. Brunson can shoot. The Lakers are targeting shot quality, timing, and rhythm, not treating him like a non-shooter.
3. Why does Luka Dončić’s health matter in this matchup?
Luka turns long rebounds into transition danger. Without him, Brunson can miss and still reset New York’s defense.
4. What does Marcus Smart need to do against Brunson?
Smart has to win early contact. He must stop Brunson from trapping him on the hip and controlling the possession.
5. How can the Knicks beat the Lakers’ Brunson trap?
They can punish overhelp with Towns’ spacing, McBride’s shooting, Hart’s rebounding, and Brunson’s late-clock shot-making.
