The Knicks hosted the Celtics and handed them a solid beating.
What if New York sent old friend Thibs to go and mess with the C’s? Questions, questions!
Here’s a bunch of quotes from your Knickerbockers following an immaculate start to the season.
Mike Brown
On Boston’s roster and coaching staff:
“They’re still a really good team. They’ve got guys who’ve experienced
winning a championship, a coach who knows how to get it done. They’ve played without key pieces before. They’re going to play hard, they’re gonna share the ball, they’re gonna shoot a lot of threes. It’s still a really good team that’s extremely well-coached.”
On applying defensive pressure and team energy:
“You just want your opponent to know, ‘Hey, I’m going to be here all night. You’re going to have to work a little bit harder for what you’re trying to do than what you’d hope for.’ Sometimes you do it to change the tempo, to speed the game up. If you’re going to be out there four or six minutes, empty your gas tank. Then come sit, catch your breath, and go back out there when your number’s called.”
On rebounding and creating possessions:
“It’s happening because teams are having success with it. They understand this game is about possessions — everyone is so talented offensively, you’ve just got to find ways to create more. Plus the spacing now — everybody’s further out. When the shot goes up, there’s more room to crash.”
On Josh Hart’s debut:
“Josh, man, monster, monster, monster. … He guarded everybody. Not only did he guard everybody, he had six offensive rebounds, eight defensive. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this before — 14 rebounds in 19 minutes — just a phenomenal, phenomenal game doing the dirty stuff by Josh.”
On Hart’s impact after returning from injury:
“It was great. For him to have the game that he had in that short amount of time was phenomenal to watch. And again, it adds to our team … I was excited to see Josh out there.”
On the Knicks’ lineup versatility:
“Everybody on the floor shoots it at a pretty high level and with range. Everybody on the floor can go make a play for themselves and their teammates. They all have to be guarded. And then defensively a lot of interchangeable parts, guys that are used to guarding the ball. They are quick, and all that. It gives your opponent a different look than a traditional big lineup.”
On starting Miles McBride against Boston:
“I wasn’t sure how fair it would be for Ariel and for KAT to guard one of those guards to start the game. We feel like we’re extremely versatile. We [can] play a lot of different ways.”
On deciding starting lineups and matchups:
“If I feel that we need to match up, I may go with a specific lineup. If I feel that we don’t, I may go the other way. Again, all our guys should be ready to play, whether it’s the start of the game or finishing the game or playing in the middle of the game. Starting is nice, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter to me. To those guys in the locker room, maybe it does, I don’t know. But I have a lot of confidence in this entire roster, so we can start a lot of different ways.”
On the Knicks’ roster depth:
“I have a lot of confidence in this entire roster, so we can start a lot of different ways.”
On defensive dominance and transition play:
“Defensively, we can be a monster of a defensive team as a group. I think our guys know it. And when we get the ball off the glass or we create a turnover with our activity — we just have so many weapons and so many guys that can push the pace. We want to be able to attack before that defense is set. And we showed flashes of it tonight.”
On rebounding and offensive rhythm:
“The effort on the glass is helping us generate wins while we’re still trying to — at times — find out the right way to play offensively.”
On the team’s progress:
“I know [the Celtics] feel they can play better. We certainly feel like we can play better. We’ve just got to keep trying to string it together for 48 minutes the right way.”
On offensive rebounds and ongoing development:
“We haven’t shot the ball well quite yet… but the 21 offensive rebounds. The effort on the glass is helping us generate wins while we’re still trying, at times, find out the right way to play offensively. We’re getting there and we’re learning every day.”
Josh Hart
On returning from his back injury:
“You don’t really know how often you use your back until you hurt your back. Last week I was feeling good, kind of hitting all my checkmarks, and then I tried to go through doing live contact stuff and it was just not there. It’s not ready yet. It’s frustrating ’cause I wanna play. I wanna compete. But I gotta be smart with it.”
On how the injury happened:
“Nah, I think it was just the rebound into the turn, and I guess my back just didn’t like that one too much. I wish I could say it was this or that, but I don’t know. It was a move that — it wasn’t even a move. It was a movement I’ve done all the time.”
On the recovery timeline and missing the season opener:
“[It’s] frustrating. I wanted to be back Wednesday for the season opener against the Cleveland Cavaliers, that was the plan, but my body didn’t respond how I wanted it to. We’re here today. We’re gonna try to give it a go and see how I feel.”
On monitoring his back going forward:
“It’s one of those things where I’m progressively getting better and starting to take contact and so yeah, here I am. It’s tough because you don’t really know how it’ll respond until you put it to the test. I tried to put it to the test a little bit last week and it just wasn’t there. So now we’re here. During the season, it’s always tough to really go through a lot of testing cause you’re not doing too much crazy live practices. This will be a good test for it.”
On playing with a splint:
“The splint’s my best friend. My finger’s still messed up. It’s still chopped. It kinda just is what it is at this point. Down the line, hopefully this offseason I’ll get it fixed, but until then we’re just gonna rock with it.”
On adapting to Mike Brown’s system:
“I’m pretty good with it. Obviously, Mike’s great with making sure guys are inclusive even though we’re hurt, and a lot of the stuff — the meat and potatoes — was what I was already running through. A couple new integrations of some of the stuff, but I’m confident in it. I think it’s gonna be very beneficial for a lot of the guys, and I look forward to playing that fast pace.”
On his first game back:
“I knew the offense was gonna be a little shaky [in the] first game back, so I had to do something to help the game. But felt good to get out there, get up and down. Happy we got the win and [we gotta] keep building off of it.”
Jalen Brunson
On defensive execution:
“It starts with defense. When we’re clicking on defense and getting stops, we’re able to do that. We can’t have fast break points if we’re not getting stops; we just have to continue to do that.”
On his mentality under Brown’s leadership:
“Playing basketball schematically has changed a little bit, but my mentality will never. If that changes it’s time to think otherwise.”
On the bench impact in Friday’s win:
“It shows we came back ready to play. We didn’t finish the first quarter strong, and then our bench really sparked us. To come back in there and contribute to that, it was a really good feeling.”
Karl-Anthony Towns
On adjustments against Boston:
“I just got a lot of experience playing against [the Celtics] in the playoffs. I have a lot of experience playing against them specifically, so just utilizing that experience and then different things that were successful for me in the series and in the regular season last year, just trying to see if it’ll work again [Friday].”
On defensive resilience after a sloppy stretch:
“I thought we did a great job of recovering from the first quarter, playing great defense. Initiated our offense, we did a great job of that. Second half, we got a little sloppy with the ball, our defense kept it together and kept us in the lead and gave us enough room for error to come out with the win.”
Jaylen Brown
On returning to Madison Square Garden:
“Absolutely. Tonight should be a fun one.”
