Player after player pretty much unanimously pointed to effort level as what’s currently plaguing the Knicks.
But coach Mike Brown is also in the process of looking for other answers.
He said after Monday’s blowout loss to the Mavericks at Madison Square Garden that he had “some idea of what I’m going to do” in terms of how to get the Knicks out of their losing ways, but that he didn’t want to “overhaul” their system.
A day later, as he began implementing that plan, he was stronger in his sentiment.
“We’ve made significant changes on both sides of the ball to help them,” Brown said after practice Tuesday. “All I’m saying is, we didn’t overhaul anything, throwing it out the window, but we’ve made some changes. And like I said before, my staff’s been great, when you go through this you tell your players to look in the mirror. It starts with me, I’ve got to look in the mirror.”
Brown wouldn’t go into specifics on those changes. His team is currently on a four-game skid, has lost nine of its past 11 games and is 7-11 since winning the NBA Cup.
His system — more 3-pointers, quicker pace, more ball movement, more bench involvement — was firing on all cylinders through the first quarter of the season. Now, they look like a shell of that team.
“We felt like we were at a good place to start the season, the first 25, 26 games, however you want to call it, all the way through the [NBA] Cup, we were in a pretty good spot,” Brown said. “On both sides of the ball. And, for whatever reason, it’s changed. And I’m not sure of the reason, but it changed after the Cup.
“And it’s continued to change and gotten worse, so we have to keep trying to find different ways we can put them in the best possible position like we did at the start of the year, through the Cup.”
In those 18 games since the Cup, the Knicks recorded an offensive rating of 114.5 points — 16th in the NBA in that stretch — and a defensive rating of 119.6 — second worst in the league.
In 25 games before the Cup final, they recorded an offensive rating of 122.0 points — second best in the NBA — and a defensive rating of 113.3 — 11th in the NBA.
The falloff has been seismic.
“When you’re in the area that we’re in right now, and I’ve got a great staff, you gotta look at everything,” Brown said. “You gotta keep looking at everything, you gotta keep trying to find ways where you can help the group — on both sides of the ball.”
