LAS VEGAS — Fresh off meeting with Mike Brown as part of the NBA Cup coverage, Stan Van Gundy applauded the new Knicks coach for checking his ego in the locker room and not reinventing what Tom Thibodeau set in motion.
“I give Mike Brown a ton of credit because he knows that Tom is a helluva coach,” Van Gundy, the longtime coach and current analyst for Amazon Prime, said in an interview before Brown’s Knicks faced the Magic in Saturday’s NBA Cup semis. “He said that in our meeting today. So he didn’t try to change everything. He tried to tinker a little. And then he came back to a lot of the stuff (that Thibodeau did).
“But he’s taking advantage of the continuity they have with their roster rather than throwing everything out, trying to do it differently.”
Brown started his Knicks tenure pushing the importance of pace and depth, but recently the squad has adopted more similarities to last season. Brown went back to the same starting lineup, with Josh Hart’s inclusion sending Mitchell Robinson to the reserves.
The rotation had been cut so only two players were receiving significant minutes off the bench, which was also a product of injuries to Miles McBride and Landry Shamet.
The team’s pace had fallen to 26th in the NBA before Saturday, the same ranking as last season.
The offensive and defensive ratings have been better under Brown but in a similar range as Thibodeau’s last campaign, before he was shockingly canned following a conference finals elimination.
Before Saturday’s game, the Knicks were second in offense (they finished fifth last season) and 10th in defense (they were 13th last season).
“Tom Thibodeau is a great basketball coach. I think everybody in this league recognizes it. Mike recognizes it,” Van Gundy said. “And what I really give Mike credit for is to have your ego that much under control that you don’t feel the need to let everybody see how different you are and everything else.
“They had a great run last year. He’s trying to build on it. So here we go. Mike’s been great everywhere he’s been. He’s competitive as hell but I don’t think he feels the need individually to prove himself. It’s not a competition between him and Thibs. We’re just trying to take this team as far as we can.”
Still, there is a notable and successful change under Brown. The Knicks are launching way more 3-pointers this season — up nearly seven per game — and are knocking them down efficiently at a 37.8 percent clip before Saturday.
But the best success occurred after reverting back to last season’s starting lineup, which Van Gundy thought was the right maneuver for “a number of reasons.” He highlighted two – removing Robinson’s erratic availability from the starting lineup and moving Karl-Anthony Towns from power forward to center.
“The No. 1 being with Mitchell Robinson’s injury history and being in and out of the lineup – I think you’re always going to deal with injuries but the more stability you’re going to have in your starting lineup, I think it helps everybody’s comfort zone,” Van Gundy said. “I don’t know if they could’ve ever had that with Mitch starting for a full year because, ‘Alright, he’s not starting in back-to-backs, so now we have a different lineup.’ So I think it was a good move for that reason.
“I also think that (Towns) – I still think that he gets his best offense when he’s at the 5 spot. Even though a lot of teams are playing their 5s on Josh, he’s in his comfort zone. He’s trailing and at the top of the key. The ball is in his hands more. And I think starting the game that way, even if you play the bigs together later, KAT’s gotten into his rhythm a little easier.”
About one-third through the season, the result feels a continuation toward NBA Finals contention.
“I look at them and say, they’re the favorite to come out of the East,” Dwyane Wade, the Hall of Fame player and also an Amazon Prime analyst, said. “And it’s not just because they were there last year (in the conference finals). It’s just the development that’s happened the last couple years in New York. And watching the new coach come in you’re kind of like, how’s he going to be? And you’ve watched them lose the essence of what they’ve built these last few years.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
