Knicks season preview: Revamped team has more starpower, but is it enough to take the next step in the NBA playoffs?
Knicks guard Jalen Brunson controls the ball against the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second half of an NBA preseason game at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Not long ago, fans were dancing in the streets outside Madison Square Garden, in love with the hard-nosed, overachieving Knicks team. Through every injury, somehow this blue-collar team seemed to endure until finally it came to an end in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.
And even then, the fans and players united in the streets for handshakes and hugs, seemingly certain that this was just the first step. But before they could ever take that next step, the roster has been revamped. The Knicks now enter this season — maybe for the first time in decades — with legitimate championship aspirations. But they also have much to prove.
The team that started last season? Only one opening night starter, Jalen Brunson, remains on the active roster. Of the nine players who saw action that night, Josh Hart is the only other player still on this active roster that will open Tuesday in Boston. Can the reworked roster take the foundation laid last season and become a championship contender now armed with talent to match the heart?
“We don't really worry about the expectations,” Brunson said. “It is different. It is totally different, but I think it's good for us, because we're relearning, we're reteaching, we're understanding more and more what we have to do every single day. Once the season starts you're back at square one, no matter what team you're on, no matter how much chemistry you had the prior year, you're starting over again. So yeah, it's no different from the year before. We just continue to get better, we're learning and personnel may be different, but the mindset and the goal is still the same.”
With coach Tom Thibodeau setting the tone and Brunson the on-court incarnation of it, the Knicks still have the basis of the lunch-pail group. Hart remains a versatile hustler who can do a little bit of everything. Add in Mikal Bridges, obtained in a trade from the Nets, and Karl-Anthony Towns, the long-pursued target who arrived just three weeks ago in a trade with Minnesota. A talent upgrade for sure, but can they be what the previous Knicks team was: one that outhustled, outworked and outlasted opponents nearly every night and, for a brief moment in January before the injuries, was pummeling everyone in their way.
“I feel like if you play hard, you're a Thibs guy,” Brunson said. “If you play hard, that's all he wants. He wants effort and just to communicate. And so when you're out there and just giving your all, he can respect that. And that deems you a Thibs guy or whatever. I think when people come here, when you start practice, and you start a training camp, and it's all about the attention to the detail and the things that we do, and how hard we go at it in practice, how hard we go in the game, and just our approach.
"So I feel like, once you get to training camp and start playing and stuff like that, it kind of comes together. And so it's really just once we start playing, and once you see the environment and everything, everyone starts to gel to having the same mindset.”
“Yeah, and there’s no real magic to this,” Thibodeau said. “It’s like it’s a commitment that you have to make each and every day. The discipline that you have to have each and everyday. And have the ability to get through things when things are going your way, and there’s gonna be times when it’s not going your way but you still approach it the same way, and just find a way to win.”
What this team can be is a dangerous, versatile offense and maybe just as dangerous and versatile on defense. In Bridges and OG Anunoby, the Knicks have a pair of defenders that can guard nearly every position with arms that seem to stretch sideline to celebrity row. Towns adds a dimension to the offense that the Knicks haven’t had since Patrick Ewing or really ever, a 7-footer who shoots better than 40% from three-point range.
“It’s a totally new team,” Hart said. “So we’re focused on getting better. We’re not going to pick up being one game away from the Eastern Conference finals. We’ve got to demonstrate toughness, discipline, willingness to execute, willingness to sacrifice. It’s going to be a process of showing that, but we’ve got to make sure we go out there every day and have that mentality.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
