The Knicks won the championship and then seemingly forgot how to play basketball.
Only, you know, it’s the preseason, so they might as well go 0-5 for all I care.
Here’s the latest from the first half of a back-to-back series of games ending north of the border later today.
Mike Brown
On the competition for the Knicks’
third-string center position:
“They should all be on a roster this year. There’s no experiments, in my opinion. These guys are all legitimate NBA players. They’re all great guys and in some way, shape or form, I can see each of them contributing this way or that way and it’s not gonna be an easy decision.”
On the quality of the Knicks’ centers in training camp:
“I’ve been in a lot of training camps and collectively, this is probably — now when I say the best, I’m not saying the most talented — this is the best group of centers I’ve been around. All of them bring something different to the table.”
On potentially playing Karl-Anthony Towns more minutes at power forward:
“I’m not sure yet. There’s a chance he may play a little bit more at the four, but what does that equate to? Again, I’m not sure. He has a better feel, and I have a better feel of how to use him when he’s there because we have to make some adjustments to what we do. But I couldn’t give you an exact number.”
On the mentality and energy required from the Knicks’ still-unknown, third-string center:
“You hope that there’s a passion, an energy and a focus coming from that spot because, at times, a person can start; at times they can be the No. 2; and at times, they’ll be the No. 3, and with the minutes fluctuating, you’re gonna have to generate some internal energy at times to go play in a low-minute game, to sit there and maybe not play one or two games in a row, maybe three games in a row. So you look for that and then you just look for somebody that’s gonna play hard at the end of the day, try to do the things that you ask on both sides of the floor and can bring something a little different than the two guys in front of you bring.”
On Andre Drummond’s defensive communication against Minnesota:
“The blocks are great, but I’m not a huge shot-blocking guy. His communication right now is unbelievable. Usually your big is the one that sees everything out in front and so he’s usually your quarterback of your defense. A lot of bigs aren’t great talkers though. Like Draymond [Green] is one of the best in the league… and I thought Andre’s communication tonight – and it’s been good [so far] – but tonight it was off the charts.”
On Drummond’s defensive performance against the Wolves and why it excites him:
“The blocks are good, him defending the pick-and-roll the right way, being big, there are a lot of good things that he did, but just watching him, and more importantly listening to him, man that got me really excited.”
On the development of Pacome Dadiet and Mohamed Diawara:
“I thought [Dadiet] had a pretty good game. I thought he had a pretty good game the game before. … Both [Dadiet and Diawara] are long, they’re obviously young and they’re talented and I’m gonna keep coaching them and they’re gonna keep getting better.”
On intentionally keeping the Knicks’ preseason offense simple to test their execution:
“The truth of the matter is I’m kind of hamstringing our guys offensively. Real generic with what we’re running offensively because I want to see if they can execute when a team gets rhythm and they start denying or putting pressure on us because they know what’s coming. Can we execute our counters? Can we still get to our spots offensively and execute our actions? Can we play fast doing it? Those are little things I’m looking at offensively.”
On prioritizing the process over results in the preseason:
“For me, it’s more about the process, not necessarily the end result. Defensively, are we making sure we’re playing with next-play speed? And, for the most part, I thought we did. We had some breakdowns execution-wise in terms of what our assignments were, but those things can be cleaned up in time. We’ll keep watching film and keep drilling it and all that other stuff.”
On his expectations for when things turn ugly in the regular season:
“I want to see how we react when we lose 3 in a row or 4 in a row and you guys are on us and the fans are on us. Let’s see if we can keep trying to [have an upward trajectory] in tough times.”
Jalen Brunson
On Mike Brown’s personality and authenticity:
“I feel like he’s always genuinely himself. He doesn’t really care what people say or think about him.”
On his first meeting with Mike Brown and how the coach established a relationship with him:
“Honestly, Day 1, he kind of set the tone. I remember, I said this like last year: He came down to Jersey in the summer, and [we] sat, had dinner, talked for two, two and a half, three hours, whatever, and just did not talk about basketball or what we were gonna do.”
Josh Hart
On Mike Brown’s personality:
“He’s super chill. He’s more of a ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’ kind of guy.”
Andre Drummond
On changing his free-throw approach after years of struggling at the line:
“I feel like a lot of people have opinions about what a good free throw looks like, right? So over my career I’ve had different coaches and teams I played for that tried to help me adjust and make it easier for me. Obviously, the stuff they said in practice would work, but when I got in the game, I’d overthink it. So I just simplified it, did a routine I’ve done since a child, and shoot the same shot.”
On simplifying his shooting routine and avoiding overthinking:
“I simplified it and stopped listening to a bunch of people. Just shooting the same shot over and over again and not worrying about the results. Sometimes, in the past, I would get frustrated if I miss, and I would try to overcorrect. Then, it’s a domino effect and more and more misses, and then I’m frustrated and I’m out of whack.”
On why free throws became a struggle throughout his life:
“It’s not something I struggled with growing up. It was more so just having a bunch of people in my ear and not being able to focus on one thing.”
Carmelo Anthony
On the Knicks’ upcoming championship banner ceremony and what it means to him:
“It’s hard to put it into words, especially for me as somebody who’s been a part of that organization. I understand what it was like to have to build something over there, and for them to finally do that, it just makes that journey and those years finally mean something.
“We didn’t win it, but now [Jalen Brunson] and them can kind of take that and elongate that and celebrate just the history of what everybody put in.”
On the significance of raising the Knicks’ championship banner:
“It’s validation and completion. Once we raise that up, we got it forever.”
Reggie Miller
On the Knicks postponing contract negotiations with Karl-Anthony Towns:
“You hope behind closed doors the contract stuff doesn’t become an issue. I like the Knicks coming out publicly and saying we’re going to table discussions until a later date. That doesn’t mean they’re not going to negotiate. It basically means you guys [media] can’t ask the players about their contract situation.”
On Towns’ contract situation potentially affecting the Knicks’ chances of repeating:
“If they want to be successful and they want to have a chance to repeat, you’re going to need a healthy KAT, mentally. You don’t want him being a malcontent, worrying about his contract behind closed doors. Because when KAT is at his best and on board, they’re hard to beat. But if he’s worried about his contract situation . . . I think a deal will get done. It’s going to be between the 200 and the 277. So meet in the middle, sign it, and let’s move on.”
On the Knicks’ championship chances and the improved Eastern Conference:
“They have a great chance of repeating. The problem is the East has gotten so much better and now the Knicks will have a bullseye on their back every single game because they’re the champs. Every night they take the floor, they’ve got to play their best. That wasn’t the case the last few years.”
Chris Finch
On LaMelo Ball’s shot selection after acquiring him from Charlotte:
“It’s something we talked about coming in. He’s been pretty good, and then when you watch it every day, you see — OK, the one-legged thing, he kind of shoots it like that every time, really. Some are a little more exaggerated than others, so it’s not too unusual when you see it every day.”
On Ball becoming more focused on playmaking with Minnesota:
“He’s been deferential here. He’s not looking just to kind of shoot, shoot, shoot. Sometimes, we [the Wolves] forget how good of a scorer he can actually be. We’ve been asking him to be way more into play-making for us, and then the out-of-context shots, he hasn’t had many of those.
“And the deep 3s, he makes them. No one complains about Steph [Curry’s] deep threes, [so we won’t complain about LaMelo’s]. And then he gives us a guy we can close the game with. You can put the ball in his hands, and he can make shots from different spots on then floor.”
On the Timberwolves’ pursuit and acquisition of LaMelo Ball:
“Of course a talent like that doesn’t often come available especially after the year [the Hornets] had. So when it picked up speed it was real exciting to think about, and it’s been pretty exciting to watch it play out in front of us.”
On Ball’s personality and his chemistry with Anthony Edwards:
“[LaMelo] is always in a great mood, always comes in smiling. He and Anthony have this shared quality that they’re really hard to stay mad at, and they do some things that you want to get mad at, but they have a reflective joy and I think that’s important. They tease the joy out of each other as practice goes along, so that kind of adds to the overall spirit of the group which we really needed.
“We’ve referred to ourselves as a moody team at times. We’ve traded moodiness for giddiness, so we’re happy to get back to some sort of equilibrium.”
