The difference, perhaps, was that Jokic's individual ability—at least on the offensive end—was still far superior to Wemby's at this point.
At the same time, Murray's level was perhaps also somewhat different from Brunson's...
Using the screen to accelerate into a drive, Brunson chose to pass back to Wemby, who was rolling to the basket.
After catching the ball on the move, Wemby wanted to keep going inside and attack the Knicks' paint.
But this time, he had rolled down the left side, which inevitably brought him into Chen's help-defense range.
Chen Xi immediately left Vassell to trap him.
As he collapsed inward, he keenly cut off the quickest and best passing path in Wemby's line of sight, then reached out to contest him and forced him to give up the ball.
The next second, just as he had hoped, Wemby chose to kick it out to Vassell, who had briefly been left open.
But because of Chen Xi, he could only use his height to pass the ball from overhead, which played right into Chen's hands.
Forcing an opponent into making a slower, longer pass could also be considered solid defense, because it gave teammates an opportunity to steal the ball or enough time to rotate into position.
On this play, Toppin at the Baseline rotated over immediately and heavily contested Vassell.
Vassell then swung it to the corner for Sochan.
Then... faced with a massive, completely unguarded open look from nearly two meters away in the corner, Sochan helplessly chose to shoot the three.
Clang!!
The Basketball struck iron, bounced off the rim, and fell into Hartenstein's control.
Leaving Sochan open on the perimeter—even leaving Kuminga open from outside—was the strategy the Knicks were firmly committed to executing at this point.
It allowed them to easily provide help