NEW YORK — Stephon Marbury is asking for a pen and paper. The waitress brings him an envelope.
To Marbury, the envelope, like many things in his life, has become a basketball court. On this court, constructed with a few strokes of a pen, Jalen Brunson sits at the center. And he’s on an island defending C.J. McCollum, the Atlanta Hawks guard who scored 32 points to hand the Knicks their first loss of the playoffs to even the series at one game apiece on Monday.
Four of his six of his fourth-quarter points, McCollum admitted after the victory, came via brush screens intentionally designed to switch Brunson onto the Hawks’ crafty-scoring guard. On one possession, McCollum used a between-the-legs dribble into a crossover, the “UTEP two-step,” to knock the Knicks’ captain off-balance.
“It’s gonna come down to strategy with Mike Brown,” says Marbury, seated on the 100th floor of a sleek high-rise overlooking Central Park. “It’s gonna come down to structure and strategy with Mike Brown — and I believe he’s going to make the adjustments.”
The Knicks head to Atlanta with more questions than answers as a team with an NBA Finals mandate that has now ceded home-court advantage. Chief among those questions is what adjustments the Knicks will make on both ends of the floor around Brunson, who holds the keys to the Knicks’ title run.
“You know that they’re running a high pick and roll. It’s really like a brush screen, just so you can switch. And it’s slow. Like, it’s like stand there, touch his body, drag him down,” Marbury explains. “And now you’ve gotta switch. And it’s embarrassing if you don’t switch, ‘cause you on the court, on the island, by yourself in the NBA. So you standing there like, 'Damn.’
“I could literally walk real slow and just grab you like, ‘it’s time,’ and that’s the switch. Now, you’ve gotta stomp your feet, slap the ground, and just get ready every time.”
That future could very well hinge on how effectively the Knicks can cover for their All-Star scoring guard on the defensive end. McCollum called Brunson’s number over and over to help his Hawks win Game 2. Marbury offered a solution, a newer defensive coverage teams have deployed in recent months to keep weaker defenders off of premier scoring threats.
But it will require all five Knicks on the floor to be on a string.
“Jalen will have to get over the screen on C.J.’s hip and push him downhill, then whoever’s man is creating the switch, they’ll stay in the help position to make C.J. pass the ball. Then, the wing man will cheat over to the middle, and the [Knicks’] corner man will have two men: [Atlanta’s] wing man and the corner man,” Marbury explains. “If Jalen blitzes the screen, now if C.J. goes to drive and the help defender is in the blue position, Jalen can switch back to his man. He can switch to the other guy.
“And that’s how you kill it. Now we’re gonna watch, and we’re gonna see if they’re gonna make that adjustment. Because [Atlanta is] gonna run the same play. They’re gonna do it old-school and make us adjust.”
These days, Marbury spends his time building WellBall, what he calls the “pickleball of basketball.” That time was interrupted on Monday.
Words Marbury never associated with his Knicks career reached nearly 1 million viewers when a NY Post reporter denigrated the ex-point guard’s time with the franchise. The post included a video from the Knicks’ own social media account of Marbury supporting the team courtside during Game 1.
“The celebration of Stephon Marbury is such a strange thing,” the NY Post reporter wrote. “He was a terrible Knick. Dragged down the franchise for five years. Won zero playoff games.”
Those words are buried inside the archives of Marbury’s iMessage app, incoming and outgoing messages alike, disturbing the freedom he’s worked hard to create.
“I get it. I understand. Things happen. Things didn’t go well,” he says. “But the purity of New York basketball is in my DNA.
“I’m the wrong one. I’m the kid from Coney Island, for real.”
Marbury amassed a 113-174 record during his four-plus seasons in New York. His Knicks went to the playoffs once and were swept by the New Jersey Nets, who lost in the second round to the eventual NBA champion Detroit Pistons.
Marbury was in his late 20s then. Twenty years have passed since his final season in New York. Today, he wants to see the Knicks — yes, the “Nova Knicks” — reach heights he couldn’t during his time in orange and blue.
“I was a Knicks fan before I was ever a Knick. My mom was a Knicks fan. I was a Knicks fan in the womb. I’m almost close to half of a century living on this Earth being a Knicks fan,” he says. “This is why people in your industry are being replaced by former players. What [the NY Post reporter] said doesn’t matter. It gets voided when real people who’ve been on the hardwood speak.”