Knicks Notes: Coaching Change, Towns, Hart, Robinson

After getting off to an awkward 2-3 start, including a 10-point loss at Chicago on Friday, Steve Popper of Newsday wonders whether the Knicks‘ offseason coaching change was necessary or if they were trying to fix something that wasn’t broken.

Management decided to replace Tom Thibodeau after he took New York to the conference finals last season and brought in Mike Brown, who promised to give more minutes to bench players and institute an up-tempo style. Popper points out that the Knicks still have a roster filled with players who were acquired to fit Thibodeau’s slower-paced, defensive-minded approach. When they faced the Bulls, who are built for a faster style of play, they gave up 135 points.

Popper states that the adjustment has been particularly difficult for Karl-Anthony Towns, who is projected to spend more time at power forward after primarily being used as a center last season. Popper believes Towns is miscast by being asked to run the floor in transition like a wing.

Towns didn’t address his individual role after Friday’s loss, but his comments reflected the overall frustration of the team.

“Just obviously we’re not happy,” he said. “We had three winnable games and we didn’t do enough to close the game out. For someone like us, that was our identity last year — close games we usually win. So obviously it’s a different feeling not being able to close the games out.”

There’s more on the Knicks:

• Josh Hart told Brown that he doesn’t want to move back and forth between starting and sixth-man duties, so he’s now a full-time reserve, Popper adds in the same piece. Hart said even though it was his idea, there might be times that he struggles with not being a starter. “I think throughout the season it’ll be a battle of, you know, kind of fighting the egotistical view of it,” he said. “I think I did have a good year last year. And you know, with a different role, now it’s totally different. I think the biggest thing, I’ve had to sacrifice my whole career. I talked about it the whole time last year. You know, that’s something that I try to do every year and try to make sure whether I’ve got to sacrifice or not, make the team the best that we can be. So it’s never like, OK cool and it’s seamless. There’s going to be days where I’m just like, ‘Man, that’s some bull.’ You know what I mean? But it’ll be a constant thing of fighting that, but making sure I know that this is what’s best for the team and locking in on that.”
• Hart told reporters on Friday that he’s not considering another surgical procedure for an injured finger on his shooting hand, per Stefan Bondy of The New York Post. Hart wants to avoid a prolonged recovery that could sideline him for several months.
• Brown was sharply critical of the Knicks’ defense following the loss to Chicago, relays Kristian Winfield of The New York Daily News. The Bulls scored 72 points in the first half and finished the game with six players in double figures. “Our defense tonight was nonexistent and it starts with guarding the basketball,” Brown said. “We have to be better guarding the basketball. And it has to be with a sense of physicality because if we don’t, teams are gonna do exactly what Chicago did tonight on the offensive end of the floor.”
• After missing four games due to left ankle injury maintenance, Mitchell Robinson made his season debut on Friday, posting four points and 11 rebounds in 20 minutes. He’s being listed as questionable for Sunday’s rematch with the Bulls in New York, according to James L. Edwards of The Athletic (Twitter link).