Wings made of feathers and wax. Flew too high, intoxicated by pride. Sent down crashing by the sun, drowning in hubris inside a dark sea.
Will the Knicks bend, or break?
Here’s the latest before the biggest game since the bounce that changed the Knicks’—now present—future.
Mike Brown
On a possible starting lineup change for Game 4: “That’ll be a game-time decision. Like I said (Thursday) night, at this point in the year, anything is on the table — what we do offensively,
what we do defensively, what our rotations are, who starts, what we come out with. Everything is on the table. My job is to keep searching, and that’s what we had to do (in Game 3). We found the right combinations. We got a chance to go up three. Couldn’t ask for anything better than that with a minute left in the game, a chance to go up by three, especially with the way we played.”
On not using KAT-Mitch due to matchup concerns:
“Because things are matchup-based. If you hypothetically have them both out there, let’s just take their starting five, you put Mitch on Okongwu, put Jalen hypothetically on Dyson Daniels and then you put KAT on Jalen Johnson. And then OG on Alexander-Walker and Josh on CJ McCollum and that’s probably not a good matchup at the end of the day. To play those guys together, it has to fit offensively and it has to fit defensively for it to happen throughout the course of the ball game. At times, it’s a little difficult matchup-wise.”
On paying attention to all details before making a lineup change:
“The reality is — any (lineup) decision that I make, I try to think of all the pros and cons. And to back that up, the Charlotte game, I knew he had that streak going on. I threw him out there for five seconds. So everything that I do, I’ll take into consideration for everybody as best I can. And will I whiff sometimes? Yeah. Or will I forget sometimes? Yeah. Or will I say, I know this is going on, but I’m still going to do this or that? Yeah. So anything and everything is on the table. But I try to list the pros and cons for that individual and the repercussions it has throughout the team, whenever I make decisions.”
On the urgency of the playoffs:
“The reality of it is, come playoff time, we should be feeling that all the time. There should be a sense of urgency every single possession you’re on the floor. It doesn’t matter who is in front of you or what the score is. You have to play with a level of sense of urgency/desperation, however you want to call it, throughout the course of a ballgame. Even if you’re up 3-0, because I’ve been up 3-0 and when you’re up 3-0 on somebody, they’re playing with a level of desperation, similar to them being a wounded animal, that makes it difficult to close out. That’s definitely something that we want our guys to feel, is that sense of urgency, so that it can be translated to every single possession on the floor when we’re playing in the game.”
On implementing off-ball actions for Brunson:
“We called it a few times, you gotta give Atlanta credit. They did a nice job of defending it the few times we called it. But we gotta keep trying to implement it, whether it’s play call or within the flow of what we’re trying to do conceptually on the offensive end of the floor.”
On the need for more paint touches and sprays:
“We all have to be aggressive, not just to shoot the ball, but be aggressive to touch the paint on drives. And if you don’t have anything in the paint, you gotta spray it. We haven’t gone anywhere near our sprays that we’ve wanted to in these first three games.”
Josh Hart
On the plus-24 Hart-Brunson-McBride-OG-Towns lineup:
“I feel like we were getting stops. Getting some good shots. OG had a couple big threes at the end of the shot clock. Deuce shot the ball well. But I feel like we really played off of our defense.”
Jalen Brunson
On dealing with the defense of Daniels and Alexander Walker:
“They both are great defenders. You have to be smart, you have to be kind of tactical in what you do. Just being able to not really focus on what they’re doing but focus on your shot and doing the things that I need to do to make sure I’m comfortable shooting the shots I want to shoot and be in positions I want to be in. But you gotta give them credit. They make things very difficult.”
Miles McBride
On the Knicks’ mindset entering Game 4:
“We’re playing for our lives.”
On the first-round series urgency:
“I would say we’re playing for our lives. I mean, it is a seven-game series and it’s the first to four, but it’s ticking away. We don’t want to leave it up to chance. We don’t want to say we wish we could have or we wish we would have done this different. We want to take every opportunity, every chance we can, and take advantage of it, be together as a team and figure it out.”
On his role coming off the pine:
“My job is to come in and play defense and come in and make shots. I want to be at the best ability I can to do it. If I can instill more confidence in my guys for me to let it fly with no hesitancy, I want to do it.”
On playing through pain:
“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 defending McCollum in the last defensive play:
“I knew they had to go quick. Main thing is, he’s a really good player. I’m not happy with my contest. He made the shot. I feel like if I maybe had bumped him earlier, but trying to get a feel for how the game was being called. I don’t want to put him at the free throw line in a sense like that. Maybe just be more aggressive and make it tougher.”
Stephen A. Smith
On the potential fallout if the Knicks crash out in Atlanta:
“There’s gonna be another head coach in New York City if they lose this series. Several players are going to be gone from New York City. I’m so sick of what I’m seeing right now. I love Mike Brown, but I’m very unhappy right now. The New York Knicks are stinking up the joint. Leon Rose, the honeymoon is over. Right now, you’re on the verge of going home. You can’t lose Game 4. You can’t go down 3-1 to the Atlanta Hawks.”
On the Knicks’ struggles against the Hawks:
“One minute you’re up 14, you’re losing a game. Another minute you’re down 18, you come back and still lose the game. You’re inventing new ways to lose. This is unacceptable. If the New York Knicks lose this series, heads need to roll.”
Marcell Scott (Mitchell Robinson’s Trainer)
On Mitch’s usage:
“Knicks Coach Mike Brown is SCARED to get mad!!! He’s to nice of a guy to coach the New York Knicks!!! He would rather play OG at the 5, instead of KAT and Mitch at the 4 and 5. Nice guys finish last Coach!”
