Preseason performance leaves Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau 'disappointed'
Knicks guard Jalen Brunson brings the ball upcourt against the Wizards during the second half of an NBA preseason game at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
When Jalen Brunson was asked to sum up the Knicks' preseason in the moments after the final buzzer sounded on a disappointing loss to the Wizards on Wednesday night, he went right to the point.
“Over,” he said, pausing for a moment before adding, “Ready for the regular season.”
While getting done with the 1-3 preseason performance may be a relief and for the most part, easily dismissed as meaningless, being ready to move on to the regular season is no assurance that the Knicks actually are ready for it to begin.
The three consecutive losses and even the troubling numbers — ranking 32nd in defensive rating for the preseason, behind every NBA team and even Real Madrid and only ahead of Maccabi Ra’anana and Taipans, international teams that played exhibition games — can be attributed to lineups that won’t appear in the regular season and the growing pains of a team coming together.
“Disappointed is the perfect word,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “Obviously, we have a lot to work on. We can’t stay down, we can’t feel sorry for ourselves. We have to fix it.”
But as the Knicks were quick to point out, the Boston Celtics and opening night are a week away and it’s not as easy as flipping a switch.
“That’s the danger,” Thibodeau said. “That’s the danger in it. I think if you get into the mindset that, ‘I’m going to pace myself through this,’ you’re making a huge mistake. We open with Boston a week from tonight. I already saw the intensity level that’s going to be required. That’s a habit that you’ve got to build through your practice habits. We’ve got to put as much as we can into this. And when we do we’re a good team. And when we don’t we’re not. It’s not really complicated. At the end of the day you only know how much you’re putting into something.”
The Knicks rested most of their top players Tuesday in Boston, which could provide an alibi for giving up 78 first-half points. But with nearly the regular rotation intact Wednesday, how do you explain giving up 131 points to the Wizards, a team expected to be among the NBA’s worst, or the 41 points from Jordan Poole?
“There’s no level of concern,” Brunson said. “But I think for us, are we where we want to be right now? No. So we expected to be at a better place than we are. Our coach thought that, too. He’s sending us a message that he wants us to be better. And we’re going to respond to that. We expected to be at a certain place at this time. And our coach is challenging us to be better than we are right now."
"I think everybody in here has confidence in that,” Donte DiVincenzo said. “We have confidence, me being a new guy I think I have the most confidence in Thibs and this week of practice, everybody’s buying in. There’s no panic-button hitting going into it. But we know what we need to do, we’re aware of where it can go. So we come back and have a great week of practice, we come together and start the season off strong.”
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.