‘You want to be shaken and brought back to earth’: HC Mike Brown addresses Knicks poor start
· Yahoo Sports
The New York Knicks haven’t had the start to the season they expected, and the reigning champs may have celebrated too hard during the summer. But head coach Mike Brown isn’t worried about his team’s 3-4 start; rather, he’s “a little excited” about their current struggles.
On Monday, the Knicks beat the Brooklyn Nets, defeating their neighbors across the bridge 103-90. The team has been off to a slow start, losing its first three games of the season and beginning its rivalry with the Philadelphia 76ers 0-2. The Nets looked competitive early, trailing just 51-44 at halftime, and they took a 79-75 lead into the fourth quarter after a 35-point third. But the defending champs rallied in the fourth quarter, as they are known to do, outscoring Brooklyn 28-11 to seal the deal.
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The next day, Brown was asked by a reporter, “Are you happy with the starts? Do you think the starts need to get better?” in reference to the team’s energy out of the gate.
“Everything can get better,” Brown answered, via SNY Knicks on X. “Am I happy with it? I’m not pissed about the starts or upset about the starts. I’m actually — there’s a part of me… I’m a little excited that we’re struggling a little bit. Because I want to see if we, right now, can figure it out — not figure it out in 10 games and take off and win the last 72, cause that ain’t happening; we’re still going to go through our lulls. But when you go through the off-season that we just went through, where everybody celebrates you the way this lovely city did, and the fans of the New York Knicks did, you want to be shaken and brought back to earth right away when the season starts, because that grounds you; everybody, starting with me on down, obviously, is human, and sometimes you can get a little full of yourself.
“So if you hit some challenges or some adversity early on, it helps you refocus a little bit quicker, which can help you get on track the right way sooner. Because right now we could be winning games, but it could be false reality. I said it before: new season, new challenges. Right now, because we’re not playing our best basketball, we’re seeing some of the challenges that we need to work on, and we’re either going to work on them and embrace them, or we’re going to fold, and I don’t think this team has any folding in them, so I’m okay with this.”
Finals MVP Jalen Brunson has shown glimpses of last season but hasn’t fully fallen into his normal role just yet either. When asked about his early-season drop in shooting numbers, he chalked it up to just “missing shots” he would “normally make.” Brunson was shooting 39.3% from the field through the first seven games of the 2026-27 season, a major drop-off from his career average of 48.3%.
The Knicks have since evened their record at 4-4 with a 135-105 win over the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday. Although it is only a few games into the regular season, expectations are obviously high as the Knicks’ stock has skyrocketed since winning a championship.
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