Coach Mike Brown Post Practice Media | September 26, 2025

Coach Mike Brown Post Practice Media | September 26, 2025

Good. How you doing? Good. Your guess good? Yeah. All right. I guess today’s the first you had to do two days and then just one. Yeah. And just kind of what you feel like you’ve accomplished heading into, you know, I I tell you what, the the team is probably a little bit ahead on both sides of the ball than what I expected we’d be at this point. Um they’ve been working hard. Uh they’ve been trying to pick up stuff on both ends of the floor as quickly as possible. Um so they their attent their attentive attentiveness has been great. Um, you know, uh, today was the first time where we really, uh, had a chance to kind of bump heads in scrimmage and and, you know, when you go against a different color jersey and just go through it five on against the coaches, uh, it’s a little different, but our guys did a good job. It ain’t be even more different when we go against Philly and Abu Dhabi. So, uh, I like our progress so far, uh, but we still have a long way to go. just ask everybody through kind of this first week pretty healthy injuries or anything like that. Yeah. No, no, everybody’s pretty good with obviously coming back ineneral. No, anytime you can have continuity with within your group of players or even within your staff, I think it benefits everybody because everybody knows each other just a little bit better. They knows what they know what uh makes somebody tick in a positive way and then they know what kind of can be uh something negative for their teammate too. So, um and and then they just know each other’s game. So, having said that, uh it’s it’s a good thing. But uh the other veterans that we have in camp uh have been great as well. Last year’s team had it had its issues defensively particularly guarding the point of attack transition defense. Just what’s your vision on defense for how this team functions and where do you I guess do you want to improve on that? Well, you know, again, I we’re laying in what our foundation is on the defensive side of the ball and and we have rules. you know, we want to uh make sure we protect the basket first and we want to declare ball, but while declaring the ball, you want to load and make that paint look crowded. Uh then you want to find the most dangerous guy and then, you know, whoever’s the last guy down the floor, um you go weak side. And for us, um if we can follow those rules, we know we’ll have a pretty good chance of uh being a good defensive transition team. Uh, the one thing that I’m big on, and I talk to everybody about this just in general, I’ve been big on this. Every team I’ve been I’ve been with is our ability to play with next next play speed at a high level. Uh meaning that if we turn the ball over or somebody misses a shot that we hope that that person didn’t take or uh whatever and the other team is breaking the other way, um that we go to offense and now we go to defense like that and we’re sprinting back. And so to have that next play speed ability at a at a very very high level uh is something that um in my opinion again will separate most of the really good teams from the great teams. One other signing that happened after he was what? I’m sorry. He was a signing that happened after the two guys. What what do you like about him? What does does he bring to the offensively? His pace in the full court does great job of of sprinting the floor and he’ll sprint to the corner uh every single possession. And when you do that with the ability that he has to shoot the ball from from deep, uh it puts a lot of pressure on the defense. It also flattens the defense because you got to go with them. And if the defense gets flattened by a shooter, that means the driving lanes go from here to here. And uh so his pace in the full court is fantastic. His pace in the half court, he’s got a great cadence. He knows when to go slow and then when to explode without the ball is fantastic. So when he comes off of handoffs or pin downs, he can create offense for his teammates just with his movement or his gravity. Because if you got a shooter coming off, you’re going to tend to lean towards that shooter, which means the slip may now be available because of the pace that he’s coming off in the half court. And and then defensively, um he’s not afraid. He’ll stick his nose in and guard whoever he has to guard. He’s going to bust his behind trying to do it the right way. And and uh you know, we’ve seen positive results with him guarding multiple or different guys, not just his position. being around the league for a long time. I think my calendar was right extension after you came but last year you weren’t here what he did. Yeah. Both those guys leaving money on the table so that you guys could build a roster. How unusual is that contract to see guys do that? It’s it’s unusual. You guys been around the league too a long time obviously and and so one of our big things when you’re talking about our standards our standards and I’ve hit this before you know first one is sacrifice second one is connectivity competitive spirit a belief in the overall process and each other uh all that’s coupled by accountability and that to me hits home on the first one you sacrifice um you sacrifice who you are and what you’re about for the betterment of the team and it just sets the tone going forward that that’s what this team’s about because th that’s what those individuals are about and that’s what they’re going to bring to the team. I have two quick ones. Um one the roster is full of guys who shot 35 37 39% for three. Just how many threes do you think you’re going to try to get these guys to get up in the game? Do you have a target number? How do you approach because you know everybody’s shooting threes at right now. What’s that regular question for you? I mean I if we get 40 I’m cool with it. If we get 40 plus I’m cool with it. But they got to be good threes. I don’t want We got a couple of guys that we will allow to dance with it and let it go and they know who they are. Uh but if we play like we’re capable of with pace, especially spacing and the paint touches, we should get generate a lot of catch and shoot threes. And if you’re open and your feet are set, especially if that ball hits the paint or or we have a cut or roll and it pulls the defense in and now we get a spray to a three. see what you did with Sabon in Sacramento and let’s say is that you know what you envision because that skill set in terms of playm can be some somewhat comparable is that do you have that vision for using them in similar way totally different they’re they’re different players okay but their skill set is at an extremely high level and so there are going to be some things that Sabonis did do that for sure cat could do can do uh when he’s at the five and then vice versa He, you know, Cat, we’re going to move him around a lot. He’s not just going to play the five and so he’ll be all over the floor and his ability to shoot the basketball will show because we’re going to move him around. All right, two more. OG, great guy. I think he has more personality that he lets on. What’s it been like getting to know him and coach him in conversation since you’ve gotten here and then this week in camp? Many people don’t know this, but OG and I have had a previous relationship. Uh, I was a Nigerian national team coach and and I reached out to OG back in maybe 20, 2020 or 2019. I can’t even remember, but I reached out to most the Nigerians in the league because there’s a ton of them and um and we were in conversation. He was close to playing on that team. Uh, but we sparked a relationship back then and we even had lunch to talk about it uh during the course of the season when I was in Golden State. I think he might have been in Toronto maybe or something like that and they came to town. We grabbed lunch, but we’ve been in contact via text and on the phone a couple of times. And so, uh, he’s he’s a really great guy. He’s a fantastic guy and he and he does have some personality. Sometimes he lets it out, sometime he doesn’t. Thank you. You haven’t chensive. First team all defense. He is more than capable. Really, it’s up to him. That’s how good he is on that end of the floor. He’s a first team and I’ve been around those guys. I mean, Bruce Bowen, Tim Duncan, I mean, I’ve been around a few of them and he’s right there. All right. Thank you guys.

Listen to Coach Mike Brown’s training camp media availability on September 26, 2025.

————————
Subscribe for the latest Knicks’ content.
Visit the Knicks site: https://www.nba.com/knicks/
Visit the MSG Sports site: https://www.msgsports.com/
Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NYKnicks
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nyknicks
Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/nyknicks
Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nyknicks
Get the MSG+ app: https://bit.ly/3SvoMdo
Get the Knicks app on App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/new-york-knicks-official-app/id498010853
Get the Knicks app on Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.msgi.knicks&hl=en