New York Knicks coach Mike Brown speaks of a standard, not unlike former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin’s.
“The standard is the standard,” Tomlin would often say in his news conferences during his near two-decade run on the sidelines. That standard was about Super Bowls. Tomlin took the Steelers to two of them, winning one. It’s a run of success that the Knicks, who haven’t reached the NBA Finals since 1999, can’t match.
That’s why the standard that Brown refers to is more micro. The coach, who led the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Finals in 2007 and was an assistant on three title-winning teams with the Golden State Warriors, was hired last July under the expectation that he would elevate the Knicks into playing until June. But that starts with establishing winning habits in the doldrums of the regular season.
“You want to embrace your standard,” Brown said Monday night in the bowels of the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, before an eventual loss to the LA Clippers.
“I think our guys have embraced the standard of sacrifice, competitive spirit, connectivity and overall belief in each other’s process.”
For the past two months, Brown’s messaging seemed to be getting through to his team. After a 2-9 stretch from Dec. 31 through Jan. 19, the Knicks lost just four games the rest of January and all of February, buoyed by big wins over the Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs that seemed to reignite championship expectations.
Now, a rocky stretch of three losses in five games — including two in a row in Los Angeles against the Clippers and Lakers — have brought back the old feelings of uneven performances, giving ammo to critics who believe the Knicks won’t be able to make a deep playoff run in the wide-open East. That wouldn’t be acceptable to owner James Dolan, who told WFAN in January that the standard for the Knicks this season, at minimum, is a Finals appearance.
“We want to get to the Finals,” Dolan said. “And we should win the Finals. This is sports and anything can happen. But getting to the Finals, we absolutely got to do.”.
With six weeks left in the regular season, Brown knows the Knicks need to raise their standard. They are 42-25 and in third in the East, 1.5 games above the Cavaliers. They were 43-24 at this time a year ago.
Here are five issues that the Knicks must solve before the real season begins on April 20:
By the numbers, Towns is having a good, not great second season in New York. His minutes, production and efficiency are down across the board — his 20.0 points per game are his fewest since he averaged 18.3 as a rookie in 2015-16 — as he has struggled at times finding his way in Brown’s offense.
He has shown the ability to carry the Knicks for stretches, including on Monday night. Twenty-one of his game-high 35 points came in the first half, as New York’s bench didn’t muster a point and ended up with 14 for the game.
Relying on Towns to carry the team has not been a formula for success, however. The Knicks are 16-11 when he takes at least 15 shots and 24-12 when he shoots fewer than 15 times.
In February, before the Knicks’ comeback win over the Rockets, Brown made it clear that the offense should run through Brunson. When asked about Towns’ season and the feeling that Towns has been underwhelming, he raised his hand about six inches above his head to symbolize Brunson as the No. 1 option. Then he brought it down a few inches to show where Towns should be — as the No. 2.
“I look at KAT and he’s probably right where he should be,” Brown said. “Maybe he should be the leading scorer, I don’t know. He gets the second-most attempts, right behind Jalen.”
“It’s a work in progress, and you got to continue to feel and evolve as a group and hopefully do it around the guys you need to.”
Brown has said he has simplified the offense to fit his entire roster, not just Towns. As gifted as an offensive option as any big in the NBA, Towns has to assert himself while not forcing his own offense — which can look clunky when he does force it. But he also has to make sure he doesn’t allow himself to disappear, either.
“My career has been so crazy where I’ve had to learn how to go with the flow,” Towns told ESPN later that evening. “My usage is high, I’ve got to do something with that. [When] my usage is low, I’ve got to maximize my opportunities so everybody else could get going.”
When told of Brown’s comments, Towns said, “You’re used to touching the ball, having a rhythm of the game, flow of the game — also minutes being lower, you have more time to get into the game.
“It’s different, something different in my career. I haven’t dealt with something like that.”
Hunkering down on defense
The Knicks were a top-five team in the clutch last season, going 19-12 in games that were within five points in the last five minutes. Their clutch-time experience showed in the Eastern Conference semifinals against the then-champion Boston Celtics, when they had two comeback victories in the opening games on the road.
They were a team that couldn’t be counted out, even if the numbers said they were an average defensive team under former coach Tom Thibodeau.
They’re a better overall unit this season, ranking eighth in defensive efficiency. They have been the league’s best defensive team since Jan. 15. They have given up 106.1 points per 100 possessions over that stretch, a huge contrast from the two prior months, when they ranked 23rd at 117 points per 100 possessions.
Josh Hart seemed surprised when notified of the recent developments.
“If that’s what the numbers say, I don’t think the numbers are wrong,” Hart told ESPN on Sunday. “I think what we’re doing is a great attention to detail and a level of physicality. I think we can sustain that. We have good players, smart players. You see the formula that it takes for us to be successful. Now we just have to sharpen that.”
Brown said defensive coordinators Darren Erman and Brendan O’Connor showed the players film on some of the league’s best defensive teams — the Detroit Pistons, Oklahoma City Thunder and Phoenix Suns — to highlight what they get away with and examples of good physicality.
“When we’re watching our games against those guys, we can see the contrast and difference in those kind of things,” Hart said. “You can learn from other teams, see where you can be physical, how to use that physicality to your benefit, where the refs let you play.”
The Knicks fell back to earth against the Lakers and Clippers but have opportunities against lower-rated offensive teams coming up, including the possibility of going against a Stephen Curry-less Golden State Warriors team at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.
They’ll play four top-10 offenses the rest of the season, including an April 9 showdown against the Celtics, who are second in the East and just got back Jayson Tatum from the Achilles injury he suffered against the Knicks a year ago.
Getting Brunson on track
Brunson is the key to everything the Knicks do offensively. When Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby have tried to put the ball on the floor to make plays, it hasn’t always turned out well — all roads lead back to Brunson as the sole reliable shot creator from the perimeter.
Teams have gotten more aggressive with the Knicks, however. The usually sure-handed Brunson had seven of the team’s 19 turnovers against the Lakers, and the roster spread around the mishaps the next night (20 turnovers).
Anunoby’s assist-to-turnover ratio is about even and while Bridges has been put in position to facilitate more offense, Brown doesn’t have him making reads from the top of the floor.
Brunson’s 30.3% usage rate ranks 13th in the league, right behind Cade Cunningham and Nikola Jokic, slightly higher than his rate last season (29.5%). He’s getting doubled more as teams try to force the ball out of his hands — he and Brown have found ways to get him free, but more sophisticated defenses will be more physical.
1:13
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Brunson has avoided serious injuries this season — he missed a month with an ankle sprain last season, which hampered him in the first round against Detroit. Keeping him healthy and fresh is a goal as the Knicks approach the homestretch.
Perhaps it was signs of fatigue or strategy when he had a rough three-game stretch recently, going 16-of-50 against the Lakers, Nuggets and Thunder.
“He’s human, and he’s going to have some nights like that,” Brown said Monday. “And his track record shows that he’ll go get it done.”
Brunson’s scoring has slumped since January, as he has averaged 23.1 points in his last 31 games. He was at 29.4 in the first 30. Is that because of Brunson’s increased effort on defense?
“It’s possible, but we’re not going to focus on that,” Brunson said. “We’re more focused on doing the little things. The offense will take care of itself.”
The plan for the oft-injured but critically effective backup center has worked as well as anyone could’ve anticipated. After playing just 48 games the past two seasons because of an assortment of injuries, Robinson has played 48 this season, with the team holding him out of back-to-back games and keeping his minutes at a manageable rate (19.2 per game) to ensure he will be ready for a heavier load come playoff time.
He averaged 17 minutes per game in November and 19.9 in December. In January, his heaviest month to date, he averaged nearly 22 minutes and crossed the 10-rebound-a-night threshold for the first month since November 2023.
Casey Smith, the Knicks’ highly regarded vice president of sports medicine, has spearheaded Robinson’s plan. Smith has been part of multiple runs with the U.S. men’s national team during the Olympics, as well as winning the 2024-25 NBA Athletic Training Staff of the Year award.
“The biggest thing is to get [Robinson] in games this year, to make sure that he stays healthy,” Brown said Monday.
Robinson’s presence gives the Knicks an advantage on the offensive glass, which Brown has said is part of their strategy to become a more potent 3-point shooting team. Many of their comebacks, such as Christmas Day against Cleveland or recently against the Rockets, were in large part because of Robinson’s offensive rebounding, which leads to a scrambled defense and open shooters.
Robinson’s free throw shooting woes have returned (39.5%) after he shot a career-high 68% last season, but his offensive rebounds per 36 minutes ranks No. 1 in the league (8.0). That’s a skill Brown plans to use in abundance over the next few months.
Holding everyone accountable — including Brown
Brown has had to learn a team that already knew itself before he arrived. The adjustment, especially in November when players, including Hart, grumbled about being benched in fourth quarters in consecutive games to Memphis and Orlando, hasn’t always been smooth.
But Brown has adjusted — and so have the players. The Knicks have turned into one of the league’s best 3-point shooting teams (sixth in makes, fourth in percentage), while going from a fifth-ranked offensive team to third this season. They were 14th in defense a year ago and are now eighth.
“Everybody’s a lot better with the accountability aspect of it too,” Brown said. “Not just making sure we’re holding each other accountable but being OK with being held accountable.”
Brown has talked about leaning on the assistants who were holdovers on Thibodeau’s staff for guidance on dealing with players. Being collaborative and amenable to suggestions made him an attractive hire following Thibodeau. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t show his teeth at times.
After Sunday’s loss to the LeBron James-less Lakers, he was as outwardly frustrated as he has been all season. That’s perhaps a callback to the standard he wants.
He routinely said of the Lakers, “This is not a knock at them …” and then referred to mishaps the Knicks made all afternoon: the turnovers, poor decisions and bad defense.
“Whether it’s this game or another game, I’m always direct,” Brown said of his message to his team. “There’s no sugarcoating.”
The Knicks are two games behind the Celtics for the 2-seed in the East, a potential rematch of last season’s shocking semifinals. They’re just ahead of the Cavaliers, who defeated the Knicks easily in their last meeting. If the Knicks slip to the 4-seed, it could put them in the crosshairs of the Pistons, who are likely headed toward the top spot. Detroit has beaten the Knicks in three meetings this season, all in decisive fashion.
That’s where Brown will be ultimately judged: his team’s performance in the playoffs — and the road to getting there these next few weeks is just as important.