‘Whatever it takes:’ Knicks know expectations are higher than ever, but will they embrace change?

GREENBURGH, N.Y. — When they fired Tom Thibodeau, the New York Knicks made their expectations abundantly clear. Even if you just produced the franchise’s most successful season in 25 years, and even if you’ve got the support of the prince of the city, just getting close to playing for an NBA championship is no longer enough.

The coach they hired to pick up where Thibodeau left off, then, understands his assignment.

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“Shoot, I don’t know if anybody has any higher expectations than me,” newly minted head coach Mike Brown told reporters Tuesday at the Knicks’ practice facility, where the team is set to open training camp ahead of a preseason trip to Abu Dhabi. “I love being in a position where you feel expectations. To me, that means there’s something of importance that you’re doing. […] We know what our job is at hand. It starts tomorrow, and it’s one step at a time. It’s every day, every practice, every shootaround. It’s in front of us. We have to attack it with abandon. And if we do, and we embrace what our roles are, we embrace the culture that we’re trying to build here, then good things are gonna happen.”

[Knicks’ Jalen Brunson reflects on Tom Thibodeau’s firing: ‘He’s meant a lot to me’]

Some good things have already happened for New York entering the 2025-26 NBA season — a campaign that will see the Pacers, Celtics and Bucks all regrouping after devastating injuries and roster re-shuffling, creating a power vacuum atop the conference the powers that be at MSG expect the Knicks to fill.

Swingman Mikal Bridges signed a four-year extension worth $150 million — slightly less than the maximum amount he could’ve commanded — allowing team president Leon Rose and his front office to continue to operate beneath the second apron (for now) as they worked to build out a roster talented and deep enough to withstand the grueling 100-game marathon between opening night and a Finals berth.

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“I think that if I came here and preached how much I want to win and tried to take every dollar and make it difficult for the organization, then I would just seem like a fraud,” Bridges said Tuesday. “That’s not who I am. I want to win bad. Whatever it takes.”

Rose added a pair of expected contributors — high-scoring former Sixth Man of the Year Jordan Clarkson and versatile French big man Guerschon Yabusele — on the cheap, giving New York newfound depth and affording Brown plenty of options for rounding out a rotation that, the coach said Tuesday, he’d typically prefer to go “nine and a half to 10 guys” deep.

“I try to play as many guys as I can,” Brown said. “Even when I was in [Sacramento, coaching the Kings], and we had an injury during the course of the season, there was a point in time toward the end of the season where I started a two-way guy in Keon Ellis. I’m gonna try to play who can help us win.”

[Get more Knicks news: New York team feed]

Brown’s first major “who to play” decision: identifying his preferred fifth starter to slot alongside Bridges, the All-NBA tandem of Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns, and mauling 3-and-D forward OG Anunoby.

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Throughout last season, that spot belonged to Josh Hart, completing a lineup that played far and away the most minutes of any five-man unit in the NBA … and one that got outscored by 40 points in more than 700 minutes between the start of January and the end of the postseason. The persistent slow starts came back to bite New York in the first two games of the Eastern Conference finals against the Pacers, prompting Thibodeau to remove Hart from the first five in favor of center Mitchell Robinson — a move that Hart actually suggested — from Game 3 through Indiana’s eventual conference-clinching Game 6 win.

Since Brown took the Knicks’ reins in July, speculation has swirled about whether the new coach would reinsert the dynamic but shaky-shooting Hart into the starting lineup; stick with the 7-foot Robinson, who made a major impact as an offensive rebounder and rim protector after getting healthy last season, to bump Towns to power forward; or consider a superior shooting option, like reserve guard Miles McBride, to minimize the effectiveness of defenses stashing wings on Towns and maximize the potential explosiveness of a five-out attack headlined by the Brunson-Towns two-man game.

After a couple of months of studying his new club, followed by observing some optional pre-camp workouts, Brown on Tuesday revealed his initial finding: that he needs some more time, and to watch all his players running in live action, to figure out that fifth spot.

“That will materialize throughout camp,” he said. “I think it’s too early to go in and say, ‘This is what’s going to happen.’”

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Asked for his take, the ever-playful Hart immediately responded with a joke — “I mean, if I don’t start, I’ll probably ask for a trade” — before both stating his case and, like Bridges in his contract comments, striking a specific tone.

“I think I’m a starter in the league. I think I deserve to be a starter in the league,” said Hart, who had a career year, averaging 13.6 points on 52.5% shooting to go with 9.6 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 1.5 steals in a league-leading 37.6 minutes per game last season. “But at the end of the day, it’s what’s best for the team. You know, last year, I talked about sacrifice the whole time, and kind of that servant mentality, and being a good steward of my gifts, and those kinds of things. So I think it would be extremely selfish for me to go out there and demand to start.

“So, you know, whatever Mike wants to do or doesn’t want to do, I’m cool with. Time will tell what that is. I’mma figure it out how I have to figure it out.”

Something else Hart will evidently have to figure out? How to navigate an ongoing issue with the ring finger on his shooting hand, stemming from an injury he sustained in the playoffs. Hart underwent a procedure aimed at resolving it back in July, but said Tuesday that he “kind of reaggravated it somewhat recently,” and that he’d likely have to play with a splint on it this season — an addition to his appendage that he hopes won’t impede his game.

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[Karl-Anthony Towns disputes report he underwent knee procedure during offseason]

“You know, me, personally, I hate playing with anything on my hands,” Hart said. “I feel like I don’t have a good feel for it. It might take a little getting used to.”

There’s plenty for Brown and his new charges to get used to — and just as important as the “who to play” component of that exploration is the “how to play.”

During his tenure in Sacramento, Brown preached the gospel of pace — of sprinting the floor off misses and makes alike, of getting into the frontcourt earlier into the shot clock, of sprinting into actions rather than going through the motions — and, in the process, produced one of the NBA’s most efficient offenses. (“I played against those Sacramento teams when he was there,” Bridges said. “You know, it was not fun guarding those guys.”) In the Thibodeau/Brunson era, though, New York more frequently operated at a glacial pace, finishing in the bottom five in possessions per 48 minutes in each of the last five seasons.

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Brown knows two things for sure: That needs to change, and the journey to changing it starts with one pretty simple step.

“That’s the first thing: tell ’em to run faster,” he said with a laugh. “You know, there are things in what we try to do and what we teach. For us, the biggest thing is getting to the corners. You gotta have guys that are capable of getting to the corners quickly. If you have guys that can get to the corners, especially guys who can shoot the ball and or make plays like we do on this team … then that’s going to flatten the defense, and it’s going to start the dominoes to fall, with the ability to drive and touch the paint and kick and all those other things. So, emphasizing that, while putting a sense of urgency or a sense of importance on getting to the corners, is going to be huge. And if our guys embrace that, which I feel they will, that’ll start the whole process the right way.”

The best possible start to that process for Brown? Getting Brunson to buy into it. The 29-year-old guard has risen to superstardom on the strength of at-times plodding orchestration as a pick-and-roll ball-handler and isolation surgeon; he led the NBA in time of possession, seconds per touch, dribbles per touch and on-ball percentage last season.

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In fairness, Brunson’s iron-fisted control has led New York to top-seven finishes in offensive efficiency three years running. As Brown sees it, though, a little bit less could wind up producing a whole lot more.

“The biggest thing that I want to do for him is try to get him — as well as everybody else — easy shots,” Brown said. “And one of the easiest shots in the game of basketball is a spray 3. I’m a big proponent of touching the paint and spraying that basketball for a catch-and-shoot 3, so within what we do, we’re going to try to get him a lot of those situations. […] I’m looking forward to seeing if we can continue to try to find ways — especially when we start playing games — we try to find ways to get him some easy catch-and-shoot looks. Because the ball will be in his hands, especially down the stretch, so to make the game easier throughout the course of the game is going to be a big thing.”

Brown said that, from what he’s seen during optional workouts, Brunson has seemed on-board with the idea of more frequently getting off the ball — to allow Bridges, Towns, Anunoby, Hart and the rest of New York’s playmakers to cook. And Brunson, for his part, sounds like he’s up for the challenge.

“Obviously, once we get started, we’ll see how everything goes,” Brunson said. “But I’m very open to, honestly, anything right now, because everything’s new, and I just want to win. […] We’ve got to obviously be willing to adapt and be willing to change, and figure out how we’re going to be the best team possible moving forward. If you want to win, you’ll do it. It’s that simple.”

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Just what that will look like, exactly, remains to be seen. Hart sees a “very collaborative” approach in which “everyone’s going to be able to make plays, to read, to react — and when you do that, everyone’s happy.” Towns theorized the introduction of Warriors-style actions in which Brunson slaloms and slingshots around the court, rocketing around off-ball screens to find clean looks.

Golden State’s symphonic motion offense wasn’t built in a day, though, and Brown understands that taking over a team as close to the top of the mountain as the Knicks feel they are requires a deft touch.

“You always try to look at your guys’ strengths whenever you’re implementing something, and try to put them in the best possible position to have success — first, to help the team, but you also have to keep in mind what their individual goals/aspirations are, and especially based on what their talent level is,” he said. “Trying to mesh that, that is definitely my job. And I think the way that we play on both ends of the floor will enhance what they do very well.”

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If he’s able to strike that balance — keeping the core of what’s made New York one of the best teams in the East over the past few seasons, while getting more out of the roster Rose has assembled on both ends of the floor — the Knicks could meet those vaulted expectations and reach the championship round for the first time this century.

“We understand the opportunity that’s in front of us,” Towns said. “We’ve just got to go out there every single day, find ways to get better every single night and give our best version to our fans every single night.”