When the NBA instituted the in-season tournament, providing a focus for fans in the midst of a long season, there was at least some hope that players and coaches would treat it with the same reverence. It didn’t hurt that two of the biggest stars, Giannis Antetokounmpo and LeBron James, led their teams to titles in the first two years of the tournament.
But the Knicks have been a team for years that didn’t need any additional motivation. To them, there was no reason to treat a game in November or December any differently from the way they might treat Game 7 of the NBA Finals (if they could only get there again).
For five seasons, the Knicks’ players heard the mantra “everything matters.” Jalen Brunson has a line of clothing emblazoned with “the magic is in the work.”
So after Mike Brown replaced Tom Thibodeau as the head coach, it might have taken a few games for him to realize the mood, but as the Knicks faced the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night with a path out of group play into the NBA Cup quarterfinals at stake, there would be no need for any extra motivational speeches. They might win and they might lose, but they weren’t going to need a reason to take Game 18 more seriously than Game 82.
“One of the things I told the guys, pressure is a privilege in life,” Brown said before the game. “Everybody is human, so if you’re feeling some sort of pressure, that means you’re doing something that is pretty important — not just to you but to a lot of other people. So you embrace it.
“In order to win and win at the highest level and experience that as much as you can, you try to go get the Cup and get Cup games and put that pressure on yourself, so hopefully it can simulate what the playoffs are going to be to a certain degree. Mentioning it to our guys, talking about it with our guys, that’s probably about the biggest difference than another game.”
Maybe the Bucks took it another way, having won it already and having gone unbeaten in group play for two straight seasons before this one. They activated Antetokounmpo for this game after he missed the previous six games with an left adductor strain.
“It’s not another game,” Milwaukee coach Doc Rivers said. “Obviously, the odds are stacked against us. We’re not used to this. We’ve been undefeated in Cup games, so we don’t know how to act. You know what I’m saying? But we’ll be ready. I think our guys — listen, we’re struggling right now and we’re just trying to get a win, so we have that added bonus as well.”
But for the Knicks, even if they joked about money to replace watches or trips overseas in the future if European teams join an in-season tournament, were going to view this the way they had every other game.
“I think it’s very good,” Brunson said. “It’s something the NBA is doing, something we can compete at, something we can win. And why not try to win it?”
“We’re competitors,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “We want to compete at the highest level. The Cup is great for the fans, it’s great for us. It gives us something to fight for in the middle of the season, and obviously every game matters so much because when you get to the end, you’re hoping you don’t look back at those wins you let go. It’s fun when you have something in the middle of the season kind of mimics being in the championship.”
Beyond the DayGlo-painted courts and the paydays for the teams that advance, the Cup does provide a chance at some sort of title. Given that the Knicks haven’t won an NBA championship since 1973, adding a banner of any kind is something worth celebrating.
The Knicks went 3-1 in group play in the initial Cup two years ago, then were unbeaten in group play last season before getting knocked out in the quarterfinals by the Hawks and watching Trae Young taunt them on their home court.
Friday wasn’t about to mimic Game 7, but it was a win-or-go-home event — or at least win or add a game to the schedule against another team that was knocked out of group play.
Rivers noted before the game that the Knicks he saw a month ago in Milwaukee are not the same as the team he prepared for Friday. Without mentioning Thibodeau, he noted that they were looking a lot more like previous seasons, with Brunson and Towns used more in the ways that they had been before. Left unsaid was that the players also would take a game in November with the same urgency they did in the past.
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.