No matter the thoughts on this New York Knicks team, and no matter how frustrated the up-and-down play has left some, the only thing that matters for this franchise begins in April.
The New York Knicks fired Tom Thibodeau, the franchise’s most successful coach in two decades, and hired Mike Brown not to sweep fans off their feet in the regular season, but to make sure that, come postseason, the Knicks were better positioned to make a deep run. It’s what management expects. More importantly, it’s what owner James Dolan expects.
On the surface, there are reasons to talk yourself into Brown having New York better positioned for a long playoff stay, just like there are reasons to believe the former coach should be in charge. With 13 games remaining, the Knicks, currently the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference standings, are 10-11 against the top five teams in both conferences (11-11 if the NBA counted the NBA Cup win over the Spurs as a regular-season victory). New York finished last season 7-18 against those opponents.
It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison — with factors such as schedule, health, etc. — but this Knicks team has hit higher peaks this season compared with last. To the contrary, New York has five combined losses this season to the current bottom five teams in the NBA. It had just two last season, showing what we’ve all seen: This team does hit lower lows compared with last season’s squad — as made evident Sunday night in a 3-point win against a depleted Warriors team featuring a bunch of no-names.
For the most part, Brown has come in and done all the things management wanted him to do and what he promised to do. He’s collaborating with his coaches and the front office, as you can see when he lets his assistants take over a huddle. He’s experimented with lineups. He’s used more of his bench. Some of these traits may pay off come time for postseason play.
As fans wait for that day to come and search for reasons to believe New York can end a 52-year championship drought, here are ways in which Brown may have the Knicks better positioned to reach the sport’s mountaintop.
The math game
There’s still time for this to change, but just like last season, the Knicks currently have a top-five offense in the NBA. And just like last season under Thibodeau, the offense has fizzled a bit in the second half of the season under Brown.
The biggest difference in how last season’s offense got to the top five compared with this year’s offense is the 3-point line. The 2024-25 Knicks were a top-10 team in terms of 3-point efficiency, but they ranked No. 27 in 3-point attempts. This iteration of New York is currently top-five in 3-point efficiency and top 10 in 3-point attempts.
Depending on how you view the game, the Knicks’ reliance on the 3-point line could be a negative going into the playoffs. I, though, view it as a positive because it’s not often that they’ll lose the math game, which was an issue for last season’s team at times. Also, they’re not just chucking up 3s. They’re generating good 3s.
As of Sunday, according to NBA.com, New York ranks No. 3 in “open” 3-point attempts per game with an average of 16.9 and has converted on those attempts better than anyone in the league other than the Milwaukee Bucks. Brown’s job as a coach isn’t to make shots go in. He can’t attempt shots for the players. His job is to create an offense and instill philosophies that put the players in position to have good shots. The Knicks, for the most part, have been doing that under Brown. These are the seven players who average the most “open” 3s per game under Brown: Jalen Brunson, Miles McBride, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Karl-Anthony Towns, Landry Shamet and Jordan Clarkson. All, except Clarkson, are statistically good shooters for their careers. Brown has created a system that is generating good looks for the right players.
Brown’s offense is predicated on “sprays,” meaning a ballhandler or offensive rebounder gets into the paint, draws two defenders and kicks the ball out to either get a 3 or put the defense in rotation. This philosophy is part of why the Knicks have been able to generate good looks from distance.
“My biggest thing on the spray is, if you touch the paint, draw two (defenders),” Brown said. “If you draw a second defender, get off the ball. There are some guys you’re OK with taking shots if they get to their spots. But, just in general, that’s what our rule is.”
Some may say this team has an overreliance on 3s, and that may be fair. This year, New York is 35-10 when it shoots better 35 percent or better from 3 and 9-15 when it shoots 34.9 percent or worse. The team, however, has good shooters on the roster but doesn’t have a plethora of good ballhandlers who can break down defenses and get to the rim. This team, just based on personnel, isn’t going to play fast. Being able to have an offense that highlights a strength of most of your players is a positive, in my eyes.
Ultimately, in the playoffs, it’ll come down to shot-making.
Unless …
With the assistance of Mikal Bridges, left, and Karl-Anthony Towns, the Knicks have a top-10 defense in the league. (Ishika Samant / Getty Images)
The defense can get to a high level
Part of why the reliance on the 3-ball doesn’t worry me as much now as it did earlier in the season is because the defense has turned a corner. The Knicks, unlike last season, have a top-10 defense; they rank No. 6 overall but are No. 1 since Jan. 15. Having center Mitchell Robinson available for the entire season isn’t something Thibodeau had the luxury of last season, and Brown and his staff even shifted their defensive principles halfway through the season to closer resemble that of what Thibodeau did.
Brown and his staff, however, have regularly preached to the players about playing with physicality, and it’s paid off after a weeks-long spell when the Knicks had one of the worst defenses in the league.
“This is why you have to be a good defensive team going into the playoffs, because you’re going to miss shots,” Brown said. “This is why you have to take care of the basketball, because you’re going to miss shots. That’s why you have to box out, because you’re going to miss shots.”
A reason Brown has been able to help New York gain traction on defense is because he’s relied heavily on players such as Landry Shamet and even rookie Mo Diawara. Shamet has been like a sixth starter, and the case could be made he’s one of the two best players on the roster at fighting through screens and playing physically at the point of attack without fouling. His presence on that end has allowed someone such as Bridges to play more off the ball as a defender, where he appears more comfortable. Shamet was on the roster last season but didn’t carry near as heavy of a load as he does under Brown.
Furthermore, putting the 20-year-old Diawara in the rotation comes with its lumps because he is still young, but given his 6-foot-9 frame and 7-foot-4 wingspan, there are many nights he is able to be disruptive as a defender. In a season that will be defined by making the NBA Finals or not, Brown’s willingness to somewhat rely on a rookie shows the coach is willing to play the long game during the season. Diawara is much better today than he was in November, and there’s a chance he ends up in the playoff rotation.
Improved depth/different lineups
Speaking of Diawara and Shamet, the Knicks have more depth this season. That praise goes to Leon Rose and New York’s front office. Bringing Shamet back was the team’s best offseason move. Getting Diawara with the No. 51 pick appears to be a steal.
Where Brown comes into play here is him being unafraid to ruffle feathers. We’ve often seen Bridges sit for long stretches in the fourth quarter if he’s not playing well and Shamet is. We’ve seen Josh Hart sit in the fourth quarter if Brown feels the team needs something different. Even Karl-Anthony Towns has sat late in games.
In prioritizing winning, Brown has been willing to try different things throughout the course of the game. Sometimes, those things work; sometimes, they don’t. That’s the give and take of being able to mix things up and why it’s better to experiment in the regular season as opposed to waiting until the postseason when a team has its back against the wall — like last season, when Thibodeau didn’t give Shamet and Delon Wright more minutes in the playoffs until the Indiana Pacers seemed to have their number. For example, Brown had Jordan Clarkson glued to the bench for weeks. He put Clarkson in Wednesday’s game on the road against the Utah Jazz, his former team, and saved the Knicks from yet another humiliating loss. Clarkson had 27 points and five offensive rebounds in 26 minutes. Clarkson had played 26 minutes combined in the previous seven games.
“It’s funny because (assistant coach) Maurice Cheeks, and all of my (coaches) have been awesome, but Mo said to me earlier, ‘We got to find a way to throw Jordan in the game, because he might have a big game, and we may need him,’” Brown said after the 134-117 victory against Utah. “Mo is a prophet. He was right on target. We needed every single thing that Jordan Clarkson brought to the table.”
Some may look at that quote and ask, “Why can’t the head coach know to do this without the help of his assistant?” Others, such as I, see that quote and think, “Brown is willing to listen to others.” The latter is why the Knicks’ brass was drawn to Brown.
As it pertains to his starting lineup, Brown hasn’t broken up the group that was put together last season and didn’t work as well as many thought it should have. The same thing has been the case this season, as the Brunson-Bridges-Anunoby-Hart-Towns starting lineup has just a plus-1.2 net rating through the first 366 minutes together. Brown, however, isn’t as reliant on this group as Thibodeau was. Last season, that starting five was the most-used five-man lineup in the NBA. It played 226 more minutes together than the second-closest five-man unit. This season, that starting five ranks No. 3 in minutes played among five-man lineups and likely will fall more than 100 total minutes short of last season.
Brown has changed things upon his arrival. He’s also kept some of the same stuff that made last season’s team successful. Brown’s willingness to both listen and experiment shows that he can check his ego at the door.
We won’t know for sure if the Knicks will perform better in the playoffs this time around. Only time will tell that. And while there are reasons to believe this team could lose to any team in any round, there’s also enough proof to suggest it can beat any team in any round — which I don’t think many rational fans believed going into last postseason.
The playoffs can’t get here soon enough.