There’s one and only one thing to say: believe the hype, fam.
Whether you love or hate the NBA Cup, out of 30 teams hooping out there, only one could win Game 83, and that’s your New York Knicks.
Here’s everything from yesterday’s historic night in Sin City:
Mike Brown
On competitiveness and leadership:
“So that competitive spirit exists throughout the organization. And then having a guy like Jalen as your leader, who embraces the work, embraces the process, more importantly embraces the details of what you need to do to go out there and win, at his size and his athleticism, he doesn’t have a lot of margin for error, so he embraces the little things. That feeds off to everybody else. So for us, we feel like we deserve to be here. We want to take advantage of being here by going out and trying to get this win.”
On creating pressure during the season:
“Throughout the course of the year, you try to find situations to put pressure on your group. We divvy the season up into five-game segments. We tell the guys we’d like to go 5–0. 4–1 is pretty good. We’ll take 3–2. To manufacture it during the regular season is tough because there’s so many games, but this is a single-elimination tournament. Every game counts. There’s pressure on every game if you expect to be who you think you are.”
On pressure created by the NBA Cup:
“This is a single-elimination tournament when you get to a certain point. Every game counts. There’s pressure on every game if you expect to be who you think you are.”
On manufactured pressure and confidence:
“That pressure is manufactured without you as a coach having to try to do it all the time. When you’re able to have success doing it, it breeds confidence in everybody within the organization. That can propel you come the right time when you’re in that environment to be able to handle the pressure because you’ve already been through it.”
On lineup decisions late:
“All those guys brought something to the table. And it was an easy decision for me going down the stretch that ‘Hey, these are the guys that had given us a lift, so we’re gonna stay with them.’ That’s what it’s about.”
On Mitchell Robinson’s rebounding:
“Mitch’s ability to challenge Wemby’s shots and then put pressure on Wemby and Luke Kornet on the other end of the floor, offensive rebounding, that changed the game.”
On offensive rebounding impact:
“Mitchell Robinson, he had 10 offensive rebounds in 18 minutes. That’s unbelievable. We had 23 offensive rebounds for the game. He had 10. OG had four. KAT had four. That was probably the biggest difference in the game when you’re scoring 32 second-chance points.”
On taking the NBA Cup seriously:
“Any time you can participate in an event where you can be the last team standing you take it seriously. These guys took it seriously.”
On hanging a banner at MSG:
“The most positive is being able to hang a banner up at MSG, the most iconic arena in the league.”
On Jalen Brunson’s MVP case:
“I hope on this stage, you guys, when you start talking about MVP candidates, his name is one of the first to come out of your mouth. Because on this stage, to go get it done while winning is what, in my opinion, what the MVP is about. So you guys do your job.”
On his postgame beer moment:
“Excuse me, I just had a beer. Usually when I have a beer, it kind of sits in my throat a little bit, so sorry about that. Excuse me mom.”
Jalen Brunson
On winning the NBA Cup:
“It’s a goal of ours that we get to check off. It’s an important stepping stone for us. We can still learn from this game and get better, as well. I’m very thankful for the opportunity we got and how we presented ourselves.”
On resilience and mindset:
“We’re gonna find a way. We’re gonna fight. We’re not gonna quit. We’re gonna go out there and do what we gotta do. When we fail in those moments, we tip our hats and we respect the other team and we move forward. But we’re not gonna quit, we’re not gonna lay down. We’re gonna find a way.”
On the game environment:
“A game like this, an environment like this, you don’t really see around the NBA too often. We got to take advantage of the experience that we got here. Being down 10 in the third and them kind of controlling the game throughout the game. Us just finding a way. Going on the run in the fourth with the help of our bench, it was big-time.”
On teammates stepping up:
“OG Anunoby, Tyler Kolek, Jordan Clarkson, Mitch Robinson, they played their ass off tonight. We don’t win this s–t.”
On Tyler Kolek:
“He played big time. I’m very happy for him. It may be a surprise to a bunch of people, but none of you see how hard this kid works. Just very happy for him and the way he played tonight. Helped us, for sure. We needed him.”
On OG Anunoby:
“The way he’s shooting the ball is fantastic. He’s making plays and he has confidence.”
On winning simply:
“We got down and we found a way to win. That’s it. We’re gonna find a way.”
On bench contributions when he struggled:
“You have guys who step up and pick up the slack for a person like me who wasn’t shooting the ball well. It gives us even more confidence. That excites me more than anything.”
Karl-Anthony Towns
On winning the Cup:
“Damn, don’t it look good to see ‘Champions’ on a shirt?”
On celebrating postgame:
“Don’t it look good when it says Knicks champions on the shirt.”
On Mitchell Robinson:
“That’s what Mitch does. I knew playing against him just how much he impacts the game. To be his teammate now and to see what he does, he’s impacted the game how many times. Shout-out to Mitch, hell of a day at the office.”
On Robinson’s performance:
“Shout-out to Mitch, man. Hell of a day at the office for him.”
Josh Hart
On hanging a banner:
“It’s a cup. It’s a title. It’s something that you want to win. Hang a banner. Obviously, there are different standards to the Cup and Finals, but whenever you go out there, you want to compete and win. That’s what you want to do, and then you want to celebrate that.”
On Tyler Kolek as an example for neophytes:
“If you’re a rookie, if you’re a young guy, if you appreciate the game, you should be looking at what he’s doing and how he’s finding his ability to get on the court and stay on the court. And you should model yourself off of that.”
On the team’s ceiling:
“We can be special. Now we have to keep proving it.”
Mitchell Robinson
On offensive rebounding:
“They’re shot-blockers. They want to block everything so I’m in perfect position. If you ain’t boxing me out, you know what’s going to happen. You know how that goes.”
On celebrating the win:
“If I don’t remember tomorrow, it is what it is.”
On tenure with the Knicks:
“Been here eight years, longest-tenured Knick here. This is a huge accomplishment in the rebuild and the growth. Been here with four different coaches. Seen it all.”
On creating extra possessions:
“They shoot the ball, they miss, I get the offensive rebound and that’s another chance of us scoring. I did that, what, ten times tonight? We missed some but the chance is there. It helps a lot.”
Tyler Kolek
On the Vegas atmosphere:
“It felt like a playoff game out there. It was great to be out there, competing against a great team.”
On confidence and swagger:
“When I have that swag behind me, I feel like in college when I was talking s–t or whatever it is, just having fun with the game. That’s when I’m at my best.”
On celebrating in Vegas:
“I’m hitting those tables, for sure.”
Mikal Bridges
On team depth:
“I think we got a lot of talented guys. High-IQ individuals that will go out there and do whatever it takes to win.”
