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Mike Brown is clearly frustrated with the team’s slow starts but isn’t ready to shake up the lineup just yet.
“At the moment, I don’t see a reason to make changes,” Brown stated on Sunday after his squad managed a 110-107 victory over a depleted Warriors team. The win came after they trailed by as much as 21 points in the first quarter. “As I’ve said before, if there was a need to change, I would. But right now, I don’t feel that need.”
When the team is at full strength, the Knicks’ starting lineup typically features Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart, OG Anunoby, and Karl-Anthony Towns.
Nonetheless, recent injuries, particularly affecting Hart, have unsettled the lineup.
However, recent injuries to Hart, in particular, have thrown the lineup in flux.
Landry Shamet has been the most reliable plug-in.
Bridges, meanwhile, has struggled mightily and was benched again in the fourth quarter Sunday.
He logged just 21 minutes as Shamet and Jordan Clarkson soaked up a lot of the two-guard playing time.
“It’s not too late to do anything. And if I feel the need, I will,” Brown said of a lineup change. “I’m not thinking that right now. I’m not concentrating on each individual because, like you said, we’ve started different people at different times.”
Brown said he’s disappointed in the starts in four of the last five games, including the entirety of their current three-game winning streak — all against subpar opponents.
After Warriors coach Steve Kerr again campaigned Sunday for fewer games on the schedule, Hart agreed it would help the NBA product but doubted the relevant parties — meaning owners and players — would sacrifice money.
“Do I think it will probably be better for the game and the quality on the court? I think so. Do I think it will happen? Probably not because everybody is so money-hungry and money-driven,” Hart said. “I think everybody puts that above everything else.”
Kerr has been publicly pitching to reduce the schedule because of the rash of injuries, believing a lighter load would allow players to be more effective and available. Sunday’s game became another example of a diminished product on prime-time national TV.
The Knicks were fully healthy outside of Miles McBride.
But the Warriors were missing almost all their top players, including Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler III.
“Looking at the data, hearing the experts in our own group talk about the load that these guys are facing and then you get older players like Steph or Al [Horford] or Jimmy — we have to manage them through 82,” Kerr said. “So there are nights where you just have to say, ‘Can’t play this guy.’ I get emails all the time from fans saying, ‘I spent $2,000 on tickets to go to this game and Steph didn’t play.’
“And it wasn’t an injury designation, and I held him out. Shouldn’t we reconcile that somehow?”
Kerr said Sunday he’d take a pay cut.
“I’m willing to stick my neck out and say I’m all for that because I think the quality of the product is the most important thing,” he said.