Steve Popper: Knicks see improvement, but find pace elusive
Knicks head coach Mike Brown, second from left, speaks with Karl-Anthony Towns during the first half of an NBA basketball game on Feb. 8 in Boston. Credit: AP/Mark Stockwell
MILWAUKEE
It’s a cruel coincidence put in place by the NBA schedule makers that the Knicks arrive here, to go face-to-face with Giannis Antetokounmpo, even if the Bucks star and target of the fever dreams of most front offices will likely be in street clothes Friday night when the Knicks see him.
Antetokounmpo represents the change, maybe unlikely to ever come to fruition, for the Knicks as they continue to wind through plans to end the 53-year championship drought the franchise has endured. There were talks in the summer before this season and the Knicks checked in at the trade deadline earlier this month. And if things don’t change drastically in the next few months they will almost certainly be dialing up the Bucks’ front office again this coming summer.
The Knicks are left to make changes only in strategy right now. Mike Brown was the biggest change this past summer when he replaced Tom Thibodeau as head coach, arriving with a solid reputation, a pair of NBA Coach of the Year awards and a plan to bring in some of the attributes of teams he’d been a part of in Golden State and Sacramento. And he, more than anyone else, is tasked with figuring it out.
As the Knicks approach the 60th game of the season, change has been coming out of necessity. The offensive system has been reset to fit the star power of Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns in their best roles. The defense has given in to the realities (read: limitations) of the roster.
“We have a brand of basketball or style of play that we’re focused on, we’re trying to get better at,” Brown said. “We’re playing different offensively, not a lot different, but we’re playing different offensively to a certain degree from the preseason up until this point we’ve made some changes.
“And we made some changes defensively. That evolution will continue to happen throughout the course of the rest of the year.”
The biggest issue is that in Golden State, where Brown was an assistant, there was a team built for motion, as good a team maybe ever seen at cutting, passing and shooting. In Sacramento, where he won his most recent Coach of the Year award, he had a team built around the speed of D’Aaron Fox.
He has pushed from the start a desire to have the Knicks up their pace of play and he was still talking about it after Tuesday’s loss to the Cavaliers. But it’s worth wondering if the Knicks have the roster that is made to fit that system. Towns is never going to be seen as a floor runner and really, other than Mikal Bridges, the starting lineup is not made for that style.
It’s not just that the style doesn’t suit the players, but with veterans with miles on their bodies, at times the Knicks look worn down by their own efforts to push the pace.
“It’s what, Game 55 [actually it was the 59th game],” Josh Hart said. “Sometimes it’s tough. Guys are banged up. So sometimes playing with that pace it’s difficult at times. I think that’s when we really have to focus on the execution, calling plays, calling sets, and executing those, getting guys in position to be successful. Obviously you want to play fast, play with pace. Sometimes it’s difficult and we’ve got to adjust to it.”
Brown implemented the offensive system at first with very few play calls, and watching this latest loss it seemed as if he needed to grab the reins with Towns shooting 5-for-5, but getting only one shot in the second half, none in the third quarter when the Knicks combined to shoot 3-for-24.
“Yeah, for sure,” Brown said. “And no matter what we did, we either turned the ball over or we had a tough shot. And so we made some play calls tonight. But we didn’t generate anything from the calls that we made.”
The thing is, this Knicks group of players know each other and went far last season. Some of the style of last year has been implemented and it’s not unrealistic to think that they could fully revert to that — and still succeed with the improved bench boosted by the health of Mitchell Robinson, the addition of Jose Alvarado and hopefully a return in time for the playoffs by Deuce McBride.
“We’re still becoming a better team every single day,” Brunson said. “We’re not trying to be a final product by Game 60 . . . I know how good we can be.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
