The Knicks made seeking someone who would be open to collaboration\u00a0a clear priority in their coaching search during the summer.\u00a0But\u00a0while it\u2019s certainly easy to present the corporate-speak in an interview, it\u2019s less common to find it once the job is filled.<\/p>\n
But Mike Brown has opened his doors \u2014 to players, to the front office, to ownership \u2014 and as he has found his way as the Knicks’ head coach, he has done something rare: listening.<\/p>\n
So after he made his offseason plans, his staff came to him with an idea:\u00a0that he was wrong.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d plotted out a lineup, putting Josh Hart on the bench, and he\u2019d already admitted he\u2019d kept him there too long in games. Now his staff, coaches who\u2019d been here and seen what Hart could provide, wanted more.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou wanna know the truth?\u201d Brown said after Wednesday\u2019s 119-104 win over Charlotte pushed the Knicks (14-7) to 5-1 since they made the move to return Hart to the starting lineup. \u201cI rely on my staff, and I had reasons why I was starting it that way, but my staff, all of them were like, \u2018Hey, these are the reasons why it would be better.\u2019 And the reality of it is I just listened to my staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, OK, if I\u2019m the only one thinking that the other way may be better at that time, then maybe I\u2019m wrong. And I have been wrong before, and I will be wrong again in the future. And so\u00a0that\u2019s what I love about my staff is I have guys that aren\u2019t afraid on staff to tell me what they think. At the end of the day, it\u2019s up to me to make the decision.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m not gonna always listen to them, but if my whole staff is telling me something, then I better open my eyes and my ears and figure out what they\u2019re really trying to say and maybe follow their lead instead of them following my lead all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hart\u2019s numbers have jumped since the move, going from\u00a09.9 points, 6.6 rebounds,\u00a04.5 assists, .482 shooting and .348 three-point shooting\u00a0 in 26.0\u00a0minutes per game to 17.0 points, 10.3 rebounds,\u00a06.7 assists, .522 shooting and .438 three-point shooting\u00a0in 36.7\u00a0minutes per game. But it\u2019s what the team has done, what the team has looked like, since the change that really makes the difference.<\/p>\n
The defense has been better, even with Mitchell Robinson and his rebounding and defense removed from the starters. The Knicks have gone from allowing\u00a0116.1 points per game to giving up 105.2 points per game with Hart as a starter. And that\u2019s something Brown wouldn\u2019t know unless he\u2019d been with the team and \u00a0seen Hart and the starters function together for 82 games and \u00a0through the postseason run.<\/p>\n
In posting the 5-1 record \u2014\u00a0and even in the only loss in Boston, with Hart leading a first-quarter run that had the Knicks up 14-2 on the Celtics \u2014\u00a0the Knicks have shown what they can be and a little bit of what they were last season.<\/p>\n
But it isn\u2019t just the lineup change. The new system implemented by Brown remains in place;\u00a0the concepts of pushing the pace,\u00a0running the floor and cutting to create space still are being used. But there\u00a0also is a return to what the Knicks excelled at before, putting the ball in the hands of Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns and letting them create. Opposing coaches have noted\u00a0that they look a lot like the group that Tom Thibodeau led last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s great at holding himself accountable, communicating with us,\u201d Hart said. \u201cI think that\u2019s sometimes \u2014 I don\u2019t want to say rare because I think coaches hold themselves accountable \u2014\u00a0but sometimes they do that within each other or do that kind of behind closed doors and don\u2019t really acknowledge that in front of the team. Him doing that is rare, but shows that accountability.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven with some of his things, he\u2019ll listen to us and you feel like he might like this and that, but if it don\u2019t work with us, he\u2019ll take it out and sub something else for us,\u201d Mikal Bridges said. \u201cThat\u2019s one thing I learned from that . . .\u00a0 He throws everything out there, as you should as a new coach, and we all try to learn it. Then some things that we\u2019ve got to fix and tweak out a little bit, we\u2019ll do.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s still early in Brown’s time leading the team, only\u00a021 games into the season. The preseason and the start was the time for Brown to put his plans in place. And it\u2019s understandable that it \u00a0now is a work in progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what my job is,\u201d Brown said. \u201cI definitely don\u2019t have all the answers. Definitely not the smartest cookie in the jar. So I lean on people. At the end of the day, I do have to make the final decision because there are a lot of voices. But any time you give anybody in a group that you\u2019re leading ownership of the process, they tend to buy into it more because it feels like it\u2019s part their own.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the head coach, I even said in front of the group, I\u2019ve got to look in the mirror. If I\u2019m the only one thinking this, I\u2019m probably wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n\tSteve 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Knicks made seeking someone who would be open to collaboration\u00a0a clear priority in their coaching search during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806,66071],"class_list":{"0":"post-454154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-knicks","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-knicks","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkknicks","15":"tag-spdata"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115664262647709532","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}