The Knicks held their annual Media Day in Tarrytown this week, officially launching the 2025–26 season. Our mood: cautiously happy.
After last spring’s Eastern Conference Finals loss and a summer that brought
a coaching change and a couple of veteran signings, we finally got our first glimpse of the Mike Brown era.
Admittedly, I can get starry-eyed about new coaches. ‘Twas only a short time ago that I fell for the wit and wisdom of David Fizdale and his promise to get Mudiay right. Then the season started, and the emperor was a buck-naked, grinning fool. So, it is with cautious optimism that we embrace Coach Mike. To be sure, Brown is a more seasoned skipper (nine seasons as a head coach; a 758-454 record) than Fiz was when assuming the helm. The veteran coach is saying very ear-pleasing things, too.
“I don’t know if anyone has higher expectations than me,” said the 55-year-old Brown. “I love being in a position where you feel expectations.”
Right on. If it’s expectations you want, NYC will deliver in spades. Thibs had a winning record (400–226), reshaped the culture, and carried the Knicks to the ECF . . . before being axed. Around the Garden these days, it feels like “O’Brien or Bust.”
Brown does share some DNA with Thibs (discipline, an obsession with details), but while the recent Knicks were all about grind-it-out half-court possessions and rigidity, the new Knicks will focus on pace and flexibility.
“We want to make sure we do offensively is play fast with the floor spaced,” Brown explained, “and not just in the full court, but in a half-court too, with a certain cadence in the half-court. And then defensively, we want to be physical, we want people to feel us, we want to do so without fouling.”
We likey, Mikey! What else ya got?
“Biggest thing’s getting to the corners . . . especially guys who can shoot and/or make plays,” he said, sounding like a guy who spent time on the bench watching the Splash Brothers in Golden State. Coach Mike said that it doesn’t matter who shoots, though, since “1-2-3-4 are gonna be interchangeable; our five will pretty much do the same job every time, whether it’s a rim run or a trail spot.”
Rim running and trailing? Have you met Mitchell Robinson yet, Mike? We think you’re really going to like him.
Coach Brown wants to give Jalen Brunson easier looks by driving and kicking for catch-and-shoot threes, and vowed to put the ball in Captain Clutch’s hands late in games. We agree, that’s a good strategy for not getting run out of town. Something else that raises our whiskers: whereas Thibs wrote his starters in ink, Brown intends to use a dry-erase marker. For now, at least. He made it clear he hasn’t locked in the starting five. To wit:
“It will materialize throughout camp. I think it’s too early to say, this is what’s going to happen. Leon [Rose] and his group did a fantastic job putting together a talented and deep roster, and so you have to have a methodical approach when it comes to saying, hey, these guys are going to start.”
Hinting at a nice shift from Thibodeau’s heavy starter minutes, Brown expects to play a 9– to 10-man rotation. “I try to play as many guys as I can, man!” he promised.
As for new veterans like Malcolm Brogdon and Landry Shamet vying for the final spot, Brown remains open. He insisted that nobody holds pole position yet: “At the end of the day, we’ll see who rises to the top.”
When the new coach was announced this summer, some called the switch a lateral move. It might prove to be. So far, though, the morsels that he’s offered to whet our appetites are pretty tasty.
Go Knicks.
