ATLANTA \u2014 I\u2019ll give Jaylen Brown what he desperately desires. Just for the next game, though. It\u2019s painfully obvious he\u2019s angling for villain status at the Garden, which should be earned through on-court performances and not Brown\u2019s method of needling commentary.<\/p>\n
But in lieu of any other candidates, he\u2019ll get the spot. Trae Young, after all, is an afterthought, banished to the NBA\u2019s Siberia in the nation\u2019s capital. Only Tom Thibodeau can save the Wizards. Achilles tear victim Tyrese Haliburton hasn\u2019t played in the Garden since the Choke 2.0 series, and his team \u2014 the Pacers \u2014 has a worse record than the (gasp!) Brooklyn Nets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jimmy Butler is now out West and recovering from ACL surgery. Joel Embiid still carries potential, but until further notice he\u2019s a walking injury aggravation.<\/p>\n
So \u201cKnicks villain\u201d is a default title for now, bestowed by The Post upon Jaylen Brown. Plus, nobody wants it as bad as he does. Since training camp, I\u2019ve counted at least five comments meant to inflame Knicks fans or inflame Boston\u2019s hatred for New York, depending on where Brown\u2019s motivations lay.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA \u2014 I\u2019ll give Jaylen Brown what he desperately desires. Just for the next game, though. It\u2019s painfully…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,75,78,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806,66,198,196],"class_list":{"0":"post-704553","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-boston-celtics","10":"tag-jaylen-brown","11":"tag-knicks","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-knicks","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkknicks","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-sports-columnists","19":"tag-sports-plus"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116367174226005354","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704553","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=704553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}