Rarely do teams fire their head coach immediately after reaching the conference finals. The New York Knicks fired Tom Thibodeau despite their success because they believed there was still untapped potential in the team. In the eyes of the front office, it was clear that this team had become stale. The offensive was monotonous and uninteresting. The bench was not used very often. The Knicks had seemingly hit a ceiling, and as the Indiana Pacers showed them in the Eastern Conference finals, that ceiling was below any realistic championship-level.Mike Brown was hired to fix these things. It’s early in the season but so far the results have been positive. Over the course of three games, eleven different Knicks have played at least 28, total minutes. The Knicks went from being ranked 26th in pace to 20th. They also improved from 18th place to fifth place in passes per match. And, the most amazing of all, they moved up to first position in 3-point rate. The Knicks have found the equalitarian offense they are looking for. Their first half Tuesday against the Milwaukee Bucks matched those ideals. The Knicks led by double digits at halftime after scoring 71 points. “It all started with [Karl-Anthony Towns]Brown explained. “As quickly as he had drawn a second person, he was off. This guy shot it, snapped drove it, or passed it. In the first half, I made a lot of snap decisions. The paint was touched a lot. Spraying the ball was a common occurrence. In the first period, we sprayed 15 times. Just offensively, it was fantastic.”What happened after those 12 minutes in the locker rooms?” Things went downhill. The Knicks managed just 40 second-half goals. Brown explained to Brown what he thought went wrong for the Bucks in these last two quarters.
Brown explained, “I spoke with our guys and I felt the ball was at a standstill in the second-half.” “I’m sure you felt it all in the second-half,” Brown said. The ball was still. It was either a case of whoever had the ball saying, “ok, let’s try to get our own” or, “gimme, gimme, gimme, the ball.” Our pace was thrown out of the window on the full court as well as the front court. We lost our spacing when we only wanted the ball. When we got the ball, our quick decisions were thrown out because it was “ok, let me see what I can make.” We did not get the ball backwards because we held on to it quite a lot.”
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Jack Maloney
Brown explained that basketball players would tell you when these things happened. They’re going to make you frustrated. The other team will set up their defense.This is what can happen if a team makes wholesale changes in a short period of time. Even though their 2-2 record may not reflect it, the Knicks are doing more good than bad so far in this season. The Knicks are asking ball-dominant stars like Jalen and Karl-Anthony Towns change their play style in order to improve the team’s overall infrastructure. It was inevitable that there would be some bumps in the road.
Remember, however, that the Knicks were not the first team in the NBA to attempt to make such drastic changes from season to season. The growing pains are inevitable, but the rewards can be very rewarding. For an example, they only need to look at the opponent on Tuesday. The Milwaukee Bucks are ranked no. In both the 2018-19 season and the 2019-20 season, they ranked first in defense. In both postseasons following, they were upset by lower seeds. Coach Mike Budenholzer then decided to change his strategy, adding more switching and pick-and-roll covers in particular for lineups without Brook Lopez. Milwaukee dropped to No. The team fell from being consecutive No. The team dropped from being the No. The 2021 postseason will see the 1 seeds move to No. They won the championship in 2021 with this change. They used smaller, more switch-heavy lineups frequently to counter Phoenix’s shooting, after they fell behind 2-0. That’s usually how major changes work. In the middle of a playoff series, armchair coaches often suggest making major changes. They act as though a team could master a new system in ten minutes. In reality, most systems are based on habits. They are based on muscle memory that has been developed over months or even years. For the Knicks right now, that muscle memory is essentially this: Give the ball to Jalen and if he’s not open give it to Karl. This will take the entire season, if not more, to change these habits.
It is important to understand that this will be key in order to compete for a title. The Knicks looked capable of winning a championship at their best. There’s been a lot of the Knicks at their best. The second half they played in Milwaukee was their worst basketball half so far this year. Knicks’ fans can expect to see more halves and games like this. But if it’s anything like Milwaukee in 2021, the Knicks will have it down by April. And they’ll be even more dangerous in June and May.
2025-10-29 11:00:42
