SAN ANTONIO — Mike Brown has repeatedly made the comparison.
Someone who would know better than anyone else backs him up.
Brown likens Josh Hart’s impact with the Knicks to Andre Iguodala’s with the dynastic Warriors teams. Iguodala won four championships as a crucial role player with the Warriors. Brown was an assistant coach on the Warriors for three of those titles, so he has had an up-close view on both Iguodala and Hart.
But it’s not just Brown who thinks they’re similar. Steve Kerr, the man in charge of those Warriors teams, concurs.
“Just versatility at both ends,” Kerr told The Post. “The ability to pass and score and recognize what’s happening on the floor before other people do. Being proactive instead of reactive. Andre had all those qualities, and you really needed that to complement the stars, the [Steph] Currys and the [Jalen] Brunsons.”
Hart often fills up the stat sheet — entering Game 1 of the Finals Wednesday night at the Frost Bank Center, he was averaging 11.4 points, 8.6 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game this postseason. But some of his most important contributions don’t show up in the box score — as a screener, as a ball handler leading fastbreaks, as an energizer and as a leader.
“You could just tell that a team is better,” Kerr said, “when those guys are out there.”
It took a bit of time for Brown to fully understand Hart’s impact.
To start the year, one of the bigger changes Brown intended on making was inserting Mitchell Robinson into the starting lineup and having Hart come off the bench. His thought was that Hart might be more effective in shorter spurts.
So, Hart came off the bench the first 14 games he played this season. Then, Brown’s assistants urged him to change course and put Hart back in the starting lineup. And he listened — Hart has started every single game he’s played in since.
And he’s subsequently played a crucial role in the Knicks reaching the Finals for the first time since 1999.
“Josh, you talk about a workman’s mindset, a connector,” Brown said. “He’s one of the best connectors I’ve ever been around. He’s up there with Andre Iguodala, in my opinion. Those are two of the best I’ve ever been around. And when he does what he does out there, it just makes the game so much easier for everybody else.”
What does Hart himself think?
“Andre is extremely talented, definitely was a better player in this league than I am,” Hart previously told The Post. “But we can be like an older version of Andre. Older, less athletic, scoring version of Andre. But it’s cool, Andre is someone who is highly respected for everything he’s done for the game.”
Hart also knows that role often goes unnoticed or under-appreciated.
“I take a lot of pride in it,” Hart said. “Especially right now, you just look at numbers and you don’t understand the process of the game. A lot of people think you can just throw five guys in that score X amount of points, and that’s how it’s gonna be.
“But that’s not always what it is, situations are different. So for me, especially in that [starting] group, I’m a guy that’s gonna connect the dots, a guy that’s gonna try to be unselfish, get other guys involved, get other guys flowing in good rhythm. I think that gets overlooked, but for me, I take pride in it.”
Brown has been asked over and over about similarities between these Knicks and the three championship Warriors teams he was part of or the championship Spurs team for which he also was an assistant. The one thing Brown always points to is a communal commitment to sacrifice.
It’s something Kerr also believes was consistent with all nine of the championship teams he’s been a part of as a player or coach.
“You can feel it as it’s happening,” Kerr said. “Guys are genuinely committed to something bigger than themselves. It sounds like a cliché, but it’s real. And you can feel it as it unfolds and there’s a magic to it. There’s just this energy about it. It’s so much better than anything that you can do individually. When guys feel that and capture that, it’s really special.”
Nobody embodies that sacrifice more than Hart.
