Star Knicks forward Mikal Bridges believes the team’s defense is a step ahead of its offense as the preseason winds down, with two games left before the Oct. 22 opener against the Cleveland Cavaliers at Madison Square Garden.
New York struggled to knock down shots but held the Minnesota Timberwolves to under 38% shooting in a 100-95 overtime win Thursday at The Garden.
While the shots didn’t fall, the Knicks leaned on their defense to stay in control.
“Defensively, I think we’re a little bit more ahead of the offense. At that point, I think it’s more of a pride thing too, trusting your guys and [you] don’t want to get scored on offensively,” Bridges said after finishing with 15 points on 50% shooting in 25 minutes. “And still trying to figure out our spots and guys on offense a little bit, but defense comes down to more heart and playing hard.
“I think that’s true [the defense is ahead of the offense]. But I think we’re still building in the right direction with both. Just keep stacking days.”
TRANSITION CHECK
Head coach Mike Brown is instilling a new standard for transition defense—one that goes beyond what shows up in the box score.
The NBA credited the Timberwolves with 13 fast break points to the Knicks’ 18. Brown’s internal count told a different story.
“By our count,” he said, “they had 27.”
“Fast break, yeah, there are different things that we look at. I can’t remember what the rule is for the NBA in terms of — I think they just use shot clock, whether or not you score in the first six seconds, four seconds, whatever,” Brown said. “There are other things we look at in terms of fast break points, which is why I said they had around 25 against us tonight because we weren’t always good at getting back with our next-play speed.”
Next-play speed, as Brown defines it, is the mental and physical switch from offense to defense the second the ball changes possession.
“Whether we took a tough shot and now the ball is going the other way or we turned it over and the ball is going the other way, we’ve got to change like, boom, just like that,” he said. “We go from offense to defense right now. If we take two extra [seconds] the opposite direction, now they’re running out on us, and they have an advantage in transition. They may not score it right away, but they’ll eventually swing-swing to a wide-open shot because we didn’t play with next-play speed all the time or we took a tough shot.”
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Bridges’ early impressions of Brown are strong. Brown assumes the Knicks’ head coaching post after the front office fired Tom Thibodeau following last season’s trip to the conference finals.
“Just being on guys, holding guys accountable, preaching everything every single day. Him and his coaches – they all run a tight ship,” Bridges said. “You could tell that whatever we’re doing out there, they’re all on the same page, no matter what the situation is. And that’s a lot of credit to him because I think he’s the main leader, the vocal leader of his crew, and for everybody to be on the same page, it makes it easier for us players when they talk to us because any coach I talk to, you’re going to hear the same thing.
“So it’s been great, man. I love how he pushes us. Accountability. A couple plays, if he feels like you’re not doing the right thing, he’s going to let you know and why wouldn’t you want that? In the moment, some guys might be a little upset about it. But we’re going to get to where we’re going to get to. He’s ain’t going to be Mr. Nice Guy. He got to hold people accountable. He doesn’t do it in a disrespectful way. He wants greatness out of everybody. And just being accountable is great.”
RUNNER-UP
The Knicks were pegged as the second-most likely team to win the Eastern Conference in NBA.com’s annual GM poll, trailing only the defending conference champion Cavaliers, who finished last season 64–18.
“I know they do it. I didn’t know they did it already,” said Brown. “A lot of respect for you GMs.”
New York received at least one vote to win the NBA title but did not appear in the top-three most favored teams overall. In the East, 53% of general managers picked the Knicks to finish second.
“Everybody is going to have an opinion. Just take care of yourself because if you start worrying about what the GMs thought or what the owner’s thought, or what the referee’s thought, man, we would be in trouble,” Brown said. “It would drive us crazy. I know it would drive me crazy. So we just focus in on us and try to do the best we can for who we are.”
