As long as the right buttons are pushed, we won’t complain about no starting lineup changes, Mikey.
The Knicks cooked Hawks wings in Atlanta, took a flight back home to New York, and will host a party inside the Garden on Tuesday.
Here’s the latest following a promising outing from your Knickerbockers.
Mike Brown
On sticking with the starting group:
“It’s always what I feel like — at the end of the day — what’s best for our group. Everything I do it’s about what’s best for our group.”
On keeping Bridges in the lineup:
“We’ve won a lot of games with the starting group. I didn’t want to panic and just change anything. Obviously, we changed some stuff strategy-wise, but I didn’t want to change anything with the starting group because I didn’t feel a need to.”
On featuring Towns more prominently:
“We just switched our early offense. So with us switching our early offense up the way we did, the ball went to his hands quite a bit.”
“Just trying to find different ways to find KAT the ball. And obviously, one of the ways is playing through the elbow. A couple post-ups. So try to move him around, whether he’s at the top of the floor or the elbow or the block. So try to move him around.”
On team play despite struggles:
“At the end of the day, that’s why it’s a team game.”
“Sometimes guys like [Brunson] can struggle but the one thing he continued to do, they got to pay attention to him. They sent double teams at him, which gave other guys wide-open looks. And he set good screens. No matter who it is — if KAT is struggling, he’s got to find other ways to help us win. If Jalen’s struggling to shoot it, he’s got to find other ways to help us win. If OG is struggling to shoot it or not getting enough touches, or Mikal, whoever it is, they just got to keep trying to find different ways to help us win. Jalen did. He created double-teams, Deuce got some wide-open looks. If they’re going to keep doubling him, we got to make sure we knock the shot down.”
“No matter who it is – if KAT is struggling, he’s gotta find other ways to help us win. If Jalen’s struggling to shoot it, he’s gotta find other ways to help us win. If OG is struggling to shoot it or not getting enough touches, or Mikal [Bridges], whoever it is, they just gotta keep trying to find different ways to help us win. [Jalen] created double-teams, [Miles McBride] got some some wide open looks. If they’re gonna keep doubling him, we gotta make sure we knock the shot down. He’s setting great screens. We gotta keep doing those little things when we’re not shooting the ball at the highest level. Jalen did that [in Game 4].”
On spacing and McBride’s impact:
“One of our biggest concepts is spacing. You can do what you want to do — but if all five guys aren’t spaced correctly, it’s going to be tough to get looks. So our group was spaced correctly. Deuce was physical. You can be physical offensively and physical defensively without fouling. Deuce was physical with our screen setting, and we need to be physical with our screen setting. And then after that action, we were aggressive with who had the ball. But we could be aggressive because the spacing is there. So that’s the result of that in the second half and we got to keep exploring not just that combination but any combination knowing at the end of the day our spacing and physicality are big things for us when we do that stuff.”
On creativity and resilience:
“[Atlanta is] making us better, making us think. So we have to be creative while not giving our guys too much by taking advantage of things that we find out every second of the game, over the course of the game. Obviously, the biggest thing is you see the resiliency of our guys, the fight in our guys, and that has to stay there, especially during this time of the year. In both one-point games, we’ve given ourselves a chance. If this bucket goes in down the stretch for us instead of for them, it’s a different story.”
On protecting Brunson defensively:
“We mix it up so Jalen is not always on [the ball-handler]. When he is, we got to make sure we continue to mix up our defensive coverages.”
“We can’t give them a heavy dose of something throughout the game because they have really good players. And when you have really good players, you get in a rhythm and you’re able to take advantage of what the defense is doing. Which is what we were doing in terms of sometimes putting them on, sometimes taking them off. And sometimes hitting right away and sometimes not. So sometimes mixing it up is the best thing.”
On next-play speed and transition defense being key in the Game 4 win:
“When we hit the ground, we’ve gotta get back up and play with next-play speed right away. We can’t take time to get down because they spread the floor. Dyson [Daniels is] to the rim. You’ve got to stop Dyson at the rim after then, and they spray it, and we’re not there to [contest] the threes. So that’s more important. Then — that’s probably the first step. The second step is to crash the right way. And then, we’ll be fine.. They crash from anywhere. You know, there are a lot of teams that crash from anywhere.”
On riding McBride late and sitting Bridges:
“At the end of the day, I just felt that [McBride] had it rolling. They were gonna double Jalen [Brunson]. When they did, [McBride] hit some big 3s. So if a guy has it rolling, he may have a chance to stay out on the floor, that’s all it was.”
On Josh Hart’s defense:
“Yeah, Josh was really good on the ball. Josh is a guy with quick feet, he’s strong and when he gets locked in he’s locked in.”
Karl-Anthony Towns
On the Knicks’ team-wide effort:
“We have a lot of unselfish guys on this team.”
On understanding the moment in Game 4:
“We understood that in a pivotal game like tonight, we needed to be our best. I thought we not only met the challenge but we exceeded the expectation in the moment, and that’s what you expect a team that has experience like us to do.”
“I thought we did a great job coming out with more tenacity. More desperation I think is the proper word.”
On having more playmaking opportunities:
“I just feel like opportunities presented themselves, and my teammates made it happen today. They made great cuts and allowed me to make those plays you guys are talking about, playmaking. So, shout out to my teammates making great moves to the basket and allowing me to utilize my skill.”
On sharing the moment with his teammates:
“To be able to have this moment is great, but it’s more important to be able to have this moment with this team, my teammates and brothers in this locker room. It means a lot. And like Magic, I just always talk about impacting winning, and to be able to amplify my teammates is one of the biggest honors I got.”
On the Knicks’ experience helping them in these moments:
“That’s what you expect from a team with the kind of experience we have. Experience teaches you a lot.”
Josh Hart
On the urgency of Game 4:
“Obviously, the sense of urgency was there. Down 2-1, giving away two games that we should have won. We had that sense of urgency from the jump.”
On the Knicks’ locker room character:
“I don’t think it’s anything encouraging about it. I think it just reinforces the kind of guys that we have in this locker room. We’ve put ourselves in this position. I know the character we have [and] we were ready to answer back today and, like I said, be ready to build off of it for Game 5.”
“I think it just reinforces the kind of guys that we have in this locker room. We’ve put ourselves in this position. I know the character we have we were ready to answer back today and like I said, be ready to build off of it for Game 5.”
On Towns’ skill set:
“He’s a hub. He’s a guy that can score the ball, but also pass the ball and find guys when they’re open. We have to continue to do that. He’s one of those guys who can take over a game.”
Jalen Brunson
On the Knicks’ mindset after Game 4:
“I think we refocused and understood what was gonna be needed tonight. Most importantly, just not being afraid to fail is a mindset we need to have. Go out there, leave it all on the table.”
On Towns’ impact:
“He really put us in position to win.”
On his sideline exchange with Rick Brunson:
“There’s no debate there. That was two competitors.”
OG Anunoby
On Towns’ talent:
“He’s a special talent. He can do it all. And I know if I get open, he’ll find me. No matter how tight the window is, he’ll be able to find it. It’s amazing playing with a player like him.”
On the importance of rebounding for his game:
“It’s a team effort, for sure. We want to control the boards. And then just depending on who I’m guarding. When I’m on the perimeter, sometimes it’s harder to get rebounds. But making an emphasis on coming in, crashing the boards, helping the team finish possessions.”
Miles McBride
On dealing with pain following mid-season surgery:
“Honestly, it’s just been dealing with pain. You know, I had surgery, and there’s things you just gotta fight through. There’s no excuses from out there. I’m expected to do a job.”
On his expectations despite that pain:
“Like I said, it’s no excuses. I expect a lot out of myself, more than anybody else, honestly. And I try not to listen to how I’m feeling day to day. Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter; if I’m supposed to get a stop, I gotta get a stop. If I’m supposed to make a shot, I gotta make a shot. So I try not to think about it. Reality is, I’ve gotta go out there and perform.”
On the playoff urgency:
“Yeah, I mean obviously you’re playing Game 42 of a regular-season game, it’s a different feel. So I’d say mentally, physically, film-wise, whatever we have to do to prepare, communicating, holding each other accountable, we can’t push it off. Everything has to be put on the line, put on the table, we’ve got to just run with it. Everybody’s banged up, everybody is dealing with something, but it’s just the time of the year where you’ve got to put it aside.”
On championship motivation:
“I’d say any year you don’t win a championship you should have an ambitious summer to finish off one of these seasons right with a championship. For me, it’s any year we didn’t win it, I’m thinking, I’m pulling from my second year, my third year — I want to win a championship. Not just for selfishly, but for this city, for the guys I fight with, the staff that’s helped us all year and the people behind the scenes.”
On moving without the ball to keep finding opportunities:
“My teammates have done a great job just finding me. I’ve been moving without the ball probably better. That was a big focus of mine, just to figure out where I could get shots moving without the ball, aside from being on the ball.”
Jose Alvarado
On Towns’ Game 4 outing:
“He was being a quarterback. Exactly what he talked about of what he needs to be. We need that every time he’s out there.”
