NEW YORK – The New York Knicks held a coaching search last offseason to improve their approach to individual games, entire seasons, and the playoffs. Despite the results former head coach Tom Thibodeau delivered, Mike Brown got the reins because the organization felt he could both identify and implement necessary improvements.
The Knicks beat the Golden State Warriors 110-107 on Sunday night, sending their fans home from Madison Square Garden victorious. But, regardless of the results, Brown was clearly frustrated with the team's process throughout the game. He did not name a “Defensive Player of the Game,” telling reporters his group's focus and physicality has been unacceptable to start four of their last five games.
“One thing I did tell 'em is that with a veteran team that has won and has experience at a very high level, I shouldn't have to call two timeouts in the first six minutes of the ball game,” Brown frustratedly shared after the win-in-score-only. “And I'm not talking X's and O's. So, this group knows it. They understand it. Now we've just gotta go do it.”
Last season, the Knicks rode the starting five of Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, and Josh Hart to the Eastern Conference Finals despite discouraging lineup data. Once the Indiana Pacers took a 2-0 lead, New York pivoted to starting Mitchell Robinson over Hart.
Brown started his first season with Robinson, but reinstated Hart in late December. The coach told reporters on Sunday that he isn't considering a change at the moment, but that “it's not too late to do anything” at this point in the season.
“If I feel the need, I will. I’m not thinking that right now,” Brown said. “I’m not concentrating on each individual because, like you said, we’ve started different people at different times. … We can play better. I know for myself and every man in that locker room, every person in that locker room, expects more. And somehow, someway, we got to figure it out.”
Does benching Mikal Bridges matter if the Knicks are winning?
It's become a trend for Brown to leave Mikal Bridges on the bench in crunch time. The starting wing spent the final seven minutes of the game on the sidelines against the Warriors. Veteran sharpshooter Landry Shamet once again assumed the fifth spot in the lineup. It's at least the seventh game this season that Brown has closed without Bridges, testing the Knicks' locker room ethos of sacrifice being necessary to win.
It wasn't Brown, or any of the Knicks' other players, who decided to trade five first-round picks for Bridges. Or to offer him the four-year, $150 million extension he signed this past offseason. But even if Bridges was outperforming his career averages, it's difficult to evaluate those decisions fairly in a vacuum.
New York's front office turned a laughingstock into a contender in four seasons, without ever tanking. They essentially traded just two first-round picks in the three transactions that brought them Brunson, Towns, and Anunoby.
It makes sense that the team took an unprecedented gamble and traded five picks for Bridges. The rest of their roster was assembled just as unconventionally. This is the same braintrust that was ridiculed for making Brunson the first player with no All-Star appearances to receive $100 million from a team that didn't draft them.
Bridges must improve his aggression on both ends of the floor. But it's to help the Knicks win games, not past trades.
