The Knicks decided it was better to finish 2025 on a losing note, so karma balances out in 2026 and they can win the championship.<\/p>\n
One step backwards, two steps forward.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s some old stuff from last year.<\/p>\n
On Landry Shamet\u2019s defensive value and skill set:<\/p>\n
\u201cShamet and McBride are our best on-ball defenders. Now Kevin, I haven\u2019t seen a ton of him, but he may be in that mix, too. But they\u2019re our best on-ball defenders when it comes to ball screens. Their technique is extremely high level. Landry is tough, he\u2019s smart. On the defensive end of the floor, he\u2019s going to try to do every little detail at the highest level of efficiency he can. With a competitive spirit defensively. And then offensively, man he runs. He puts a lot of pressure on the defense. He\u2019s shooting 42.4 percent from the 3-point line.\u201d<\/p>\n
On being outworked by the Spurs:<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just, s\u2013t, excuse my French, but they just outworked us in a lot of ways. Mitch Johnson kicked my ass. The rest of the team kicked our ass. We all got our ass kicked today.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the Knicks\u2019 defensive issues and physicality:<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, it\u2019s our physicality wasn\u2019t good. We haven\u2019t figured out how to be physical for 48 minutes in the last I don\u2019t know how many games. And doing it without fouling. We pick up some silly fouls that we have to do a better job of. I feel everybody understands that. But now we have to go do it. Our physicality isn\u2019t good. I don\u2019t know if we\u2019re tired or what, but we haven\u2019t been able to sustain anything defensively for 48 minutes. And we\u2019ve won a lot of games, and you want to win games and feel good about it. But at the end of the day, if we don\u2019t figure out how to sustain what we\u2019re supposed to do on defense for 48 minutes, it\u2019s going to be a long year for us and it\u2019s going to catch up with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
On failing to defend Julian Champagnie:<\/p>\n
\u201cHe shot the mess out the ball. I was a little disappointed in our guys because it was almost like we didn\u2019t respect him. We didn\u2019t pick him up in transition. He just kept getting look after look after look after look. Wide open. I was really disappointed in the way we defended him.\u201d<\/p>\n
On San Antonio\u2019s motivation after the NBA Cup final:<\/p>\n
\u201cThey know what happened in the cup, they\u2019re going to play with a little extra edge. Especially they lost a couple here now lately.\u201d<\/p>\n
On free-throw disparity and fouling on Wednesday:<\/p>\n
\u201c40 free throw attempts, I know we fouled late in the game. They almost doubled us in free throw attempts the whole game. I don\u2019t know, maybe we weren\u2019t aggressive enough, I\u2019m not sure. It\u2019d be interesting to go back to look at the film to see why we couldn\u2019t get to the free throw line but why they were getting to the free throw line. That\u2019s a huge disadvantage if you\u2019re talking about 20 to 40 from the free-throw line. It\u2019s going to be tough if the free-throw disparity is that big.\u201d<\/p>\n
On having championship expectations with the Knicks:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou come here you want to win. You look at a team on paper, you\u2019re around the team a little bit. You\u2019re like, \u2018OK man, we legitimately have a chance to like win this whole thing.\u2019 But in terms of my preparation with the team and all that, I mean, it\u2019s all the same. We\u2019re trying to friggin\u2019 win and win at a high level. We have a chance here because of the roster, the guys on the roster and the coaches I have on my staff and Leon and Jim Dolan. We\u2019ve got a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the need for full-time defensive urgency:<\/p>\n
\u201cI think at times we think, \u2018We\u2019re good, we\u2019re going to end up winning this, or we\u2019re going to outscore them.\u2019 And that\u2019s not the mentality to have. There has to be a sense of urgency defensively for 48 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Mitchell Robinson\u2019s absences and load management:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all load management. If you look at our schedule, it\u2019s been hectic. We\u2019re just trying to be smart with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Robinson\u2019s upcoming availability:<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll play one of those two games. I\u2019m not sure which one yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
On how his shoulder injury felt compared to last time:<\/p>\n
\u201cNot quite like getting shot in the arm, a few steps down.\u201d<\/p>\n
On his rehab progress and avoiding surgery:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re happy where things are at. You never really know. I had a lot of confidence in the rehab I did last year, and I was able to start doing things sooner in the rehab process than I kind of expected this time. So, if anything, that kind of just reassured the importance of rehabbing right and taking care of things. That\u2019s really the biggest thing that gave me confidence. In the middle of it, though, there\u2019s a lot of other stuff going on and you don\u2019t really know until \u2014 you know, trust our doctors, talk to them and get all the information you need.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the Knicks\u2019 support during his recovery:<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s great to know. No complaints with the organization, they\u2019ve been great. The support staff and everybody involved, they\u2019re committed, they\u2019ve been great, and they\u2019ve been working closely with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
On anticipating an adjustment period when he returns:<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, even if you\u2019re out for a week there\u2019s some level of an adjustment period. You can\u2019t replicate playing basketball. So even if it\u2019s something as simple as your conditioning. However small or big of an adjustment there is, there will be some adjustments. It\u2019s hard to tell right now what those will be. But I anticipate some. It would be naive to say there wouldn\u2019t be any.\u201d<\/p>\n
On his current rehab status later in the week:<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing well. Taking things a day at a time and getting better. Staying engaged here with the guys and trying to contribute as much as I can while still being out. And yeah, in a good spot, getting better. My intention was to rehab and get this thing right. And you make that decision, and there\u2019s not a gray area or back-and-forth considerations beyond whatever you decide to do. So that was it, that\u2019s where we\u2019re at.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes it\u2019s just about taking pride and getting stops. I feel like when the ball\u2019s going in, even for me tonight, I\u2019ve got to be better on the defensive end. I\u2019ve got to get stops. I\u2019m out there to get stops first, make shots, but I just think it\u2019s about taking pride.\u201d<\/p>\n
On absorbing advice from Ray Allen early in his career:<\/p>\n
\u201cHe probably didn\u2019t realize I was going to lock in on whatever he was saying.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Allen\u2019s guidance about shooting preparation and focus:<\/p>\n
\u201cGet more elevation. He said, \u2018In the 15 minutes pregame, I work out hard. You can\u2019t flip it on and off.\u2019 Those type of things stick with me. Anytime he shoots the ball, whether it\u2019s for fun, he was always locked in. And those were always the things I feel like help me more because I\u2019m more locked in and focused on my jumper.\u201d<\/p>\n
On adjusting his shot mechanics from midrange to the three-point line:<\/p>\n
\u201cI always elevated really high on my midrange. So, I just felt like moving it back to the 3-point line, and it worked out. And I\u2019m not worried about guys blocking my shot.\u201d<\/p>\n
On speaking with Ray Allen directly:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a cool moment to talk to one of the greatest shooters to ever play.\u201d<\/p>\n
On embracing his long-term role as a bench scorer:<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, that\u2019s my job. That\u2019s my role. I don\u2019t expect nothing more, don\u2019t expect nothing less. Just come out and try to impact whatever time I get.\u201d<\/p>\n
On accepting a reserve role throughout his career:<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of knew that this is what I was going to do. Cleveland, came off the bench, same thing. It hasn\u2019t changed since then. Just really embraced it and ran with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
On his knee injury and confidence after leaving the game:<\/p>\n
\u201cI was confident. I was this close to coming back in the game. They had to hold me back. It was just a hyperextension, so it should be minimal. We\u2019ve got to do everything tomorrow still to check that everything\u2019s OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m feeling good, just sore. I\u2019m confident. I was close to coming back into the game. They had to hold me back. It was just a hyperextension. It should be a minimal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitch Johnson (Spurs Head Coach)<\/p>\n
On seeing Victor Wembanyama finish the game on the bench:<\/p>\n
\u201cHave not been able to talk to the medical staff yet, but I think I saw what everybody else saw. Obviously, he finished the game on the bench with his teammates. So, I think that made me feel good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Knicks decided it was better to finish 2025 on a losing note, so karma balances out in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,304,2964,6,1136,191,3810,3806],"class_list":{"0":"post-509730","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-knicks-news","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-knicks","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkknicks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115819661596735178","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509730","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=509730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}