It’s NBA Cup Week and the Knicks will have one final test before entering their quarter-finals matchup against the Atlanta Hawks.
Later on Monday New York will play the Raptors and a few familiar faces in Toronto as they take on RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley in the Knickerbockers In-Season Tournament tuneup.
Here’s the latest we’ve fetched from Coach Thibs and a few Knicks touching on the loss to Detroit on Saturday.
Tom Thibodeau
On Ariel Hukporti and Precious Achiuwa’s overtaking Jericho Sims in the rotation on Saturday:
“We were just searching. We wanted energy and you have to hustle.
“Precious has been out a long time, so there’s a lot of rust. But I liked his reaction to the ball, he was the one guy that would get to the ball. But his timing’s not quite there yet, but each day, it’ll get better. So he gave us some good energy.”
On the Knicks’ defensive struggles:
“You have to hustle. You have Cunningham and Ivey, very dynamic off the dribble. So any time you put two on the ball, you have to protect the rim, but you also have to rotate cleanly to challenge shots.
“Everyone’s gotta know what the next guy’s doing. Normally, we’re good at that. We weren’t tonight. And we’ve gotta fix it quickly and get ready for the next game.
“It starts with your ball pressure, it starts with your bigs being in proper position, your shell being tight, rotating cleanly and finishing. You have to finish your defense. You have to challenge shots and you have to get the bodies.”
Jalen Brunson
On the slow start against the Pistons:
“I think it started from just the beginning. The physicality from the start—you can’t give a great player (Cade Cunningham) confidence in the beginning, and we did it as a team.
“No one—it’s not one person’s job to guard or whatever—it’s all five of us and we all have a part in it.”
On playing from behind:
“Yeah, it’s just, when we dig ourselves a hole like that and we’re playing from behind, it’s not easy.
“Yes, we cut it to two, we should’ve honestly closed it and maybe even took the lead, but like I said, you can’t give the team confidence early, and that’s what we did. And they had confidence the entire night.”
Mikal Bridges
On defensive communication issues:
“I think communication is the biggest thing. A lot of transition, just no communication, just not talking to each other. And it’s not like we don’t like each other or anything. It’s just that sense of urgency, trying to help each other out.
“We gotta understand that when we don’t talk to each other, it’s gonna hurt us, and so in transition, not saying nothing, so somebody’s gonna step up, and two are gonna go to the ball, and two are gonna go to one man, and you give up open 3s.
“We always talk on defense, but I think we can always be better. And [Saturday] we lacked it real early.
“It just tends—when things don’t go well offensively, we tend to not talk, get back, and we kind of just jog back and just pick up, probably, the man that you’re probably gonna guard. [But] in transition, you’ve got no man. You’ve got to guard the person that’s closest to you. I think we’ve gotta learn that while we play.”
Precious Achiuwa
On needing to improve defensively:
“Defensively, we’ve just gotta take out the three-point shots and put together a whole effort defensively.
“Pick-and-roll, we’ve gotta fix that of course, and figuring out what we wanna do defensively with the pick-and-roll, especially with me being out there and OG and Mikal, I think we’re very dynamic. We gotta figure out what we wanna do, the three of us.
“I think we’re very gifted defensively. We were having defensive mishaps.”
Josh Hart
On the Knicks starting slow more often than not:
“Yeah, we just lacked energy in that first quarter (on Saturday). We didn’t come out aggressive, physical, not great. Just got to be better.
“There have been a couple of lows in the first quarter that we got to get fixed. We can’t always try to dig ourselves out of a hole.”
OG Anunoby
On adjusting after the loss to Detroit:
“All we can do is watch the film and adjust and go from there. I think we’re gonna keep getting better and better as the year goes on. That’s the goal, for sure.”