Expectations are sky-high around the Knicks — the team just fired the coach who led it to its first Eastern Conference Finals in a quarter century. That sets the bar at finals-or-bust high for his replacement.
Mike Brown leaned into that at his introductory press conference.
“Nobody has bigger expectations, first of all, than I do,” Brown said at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday. “My expectations are high. This is the Knicks. I talked about Madison Square Garden being iconic. I talked about our fans. I love and embrace the expectations that come along with it. I’m looking forward to it.”
There are reasons Brown won out on a long and winding coaching search. First and foremost, he’s a good coach. Brown is a two-time NBA Coach of the Year who led the LeBron-era Cleveland Cavaliers to the Finals, and he was the coach who broke Sacramento’s 16-year playoff drought. Second, he has coached stars before, including LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. However, reports out of New York suggest that what was the real selling point was Brown’s collaborative nature, working with the front office and his assistant coaches. That was not the Thibodeau way, and it wore on Leon Rose and the Knicks’ front office.
“I had great conversations with [Knicks’ owner James] Dolan and, obviously, Leon and his group,” Brown said. “My whole thing is that I want to form a partnership with (Leon). I want to do this together. It’s impossible to do it on your own.”
Brown takes over a roster that won 51 games and finished as the No. 3 seed in the East a season ago. Those Knicks had the fifth-best offense in the NBA behind Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns, but were also 14th in the league in defense. Brown is known as a defense-first coach, but then again, so was the fired Thibodeau — a coach can only do so much with the talent on hand, and the Knicks front office has not built a defensive juggernaut.
The question with the Knicks is less tactical — although Brown will want less isolation and more ball-and-player movement, remember he was Steve Kerr’s lead assistant with the Warriors for a couple of titles — and more whether having a different voice in the locker room is the key. Do the Knicks just need a change?
“I thought what this group did this past year in the playoffs, it just shows their potential, not just defensively but offensively, too,” Brown said at his press conference. “I’m looking forward to putting a plan in place and working with those guys on both ends of the floor… Implementing my vision is very exciting for me and, hopefully, it is for everyone else. I think the ceiling is high on both ends for the group.”
Brown and the Celtics need to reach that ceiling — the expectations he walks into are that high.
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