We were getting so comfortable with the Knicks endless winning that Monday’s loss hurt us bad.
Nah, not really, but it still stank.
Here’s a bunch of quotes from Coach Brown and a few other folks as the NYK approach deadline date for rostered players to make the cut or pack their bags.
**On the awuful preseason loss to Washington:**
“Our starters did not bring the energy. This is probably a worse basketball game overall and we did it in spurts.”
**On the Wizards’ approach and Knicks’ execution:**
“They didn’t do anything tricky. They were just in the right spot defensively. They tried to play the way that we’ve been playing throughout the preseason, every day in practice and it showed at times to be very good basketball.”
“We needed to do better collectively as a unit when it came to doing the little things, starting with boxing out we weren’t great at it. Defensively, we weren’t great in our shifts, and we’d been pretty darn good in those two areas so far.”
**On defensive struggles and learning from Monday’s loss:**
“Great film to learn from, because we made a lot of mistakes that were uncharacteristic of how we’ve played so far.”
**On silver linings despite the poor game against the lowly Wizards:**
“Offensively, we didn’t do anything different when that second group came in. Guys just spaced the floor, they tried to play with pace. It wasn’t there all the time, but they tried to do it. Great learning experience. We’ll all grow from it and hopefully take a step forward instead of thinking we took a step backwards because we didn’t play well tonight.”
**On Guerschon Yabusele’s adaptation to playing center:**
“It’s gonna be a bit of a learning curve for him.”
**On Dadiet’s size and development:**
“He’s just gotta continue to understand how big he is. He’s long. He’s a big wing. And at times, he doesn’t utilize it. We always talk about playing big, playing big, playing big. And he doesn’t utilize it all the time. And that’s just being young. At times, he’s a little quiet and he’s a little unsure of what he should be saying or doing.
“So we keep trying to throw him into the fire as much as possible. It’s something that I’d like to do come regular season. I don’t know how many minutes he’s gonna get per game. But he definitely has a chance to be a player in this league for a long time, and you wanna help try to speed that development up because you see a lot of good things.
“You see he can run, you see he can cut, he’s big… you see he does a pretty good job of finishing and shoot the basketball. And you couple that with his ability to play defense, and you have a pretty good young prospect, especially for his age.”
**On Tyler Kolek’s contribution:**
“I thought the guys coming off the bench, they did a great job, Tyler gave us great minutes.”
“Tyler gave us some great minutes. His pace was great for us offensively -- he touched the paint and sprayed it, we’re a big spray team, and he tried to reach space after he got off it. Then defensively he tried to talk and bring energy. I thought he was really good.”
“Being the smaller guy, you have to sacrifice your body. For me, it’s a great step from seeing the opportunity in Abu Dhabi and then tonight he actually tried to take the hit, so now hopefully we’ll go from there and he’ll take a couple of hits.”
**On leaving the starters and a few other important players out Monday:**
“It’s important. We want to try to give some guys some extended minutes to take a look at them tonight. It’s important because they’ve all been busting their behinds, and making that decision is extremely tough.”
“Landry and Ariel, those two more so than the other guys, I was probably going to start Ariel, but he’s sick, and then Landry obviously is competing for a roster spot as well, and he’s sick as well.”
**On dealing with the pressure of the impending roster cuts:**
“There’s always pressure. I don’t really look at stuff like this. I try to stay focused on basketball and what I can control.”
**On whether the roster situation gave him more urgency in the preseason:**
“There’s urgency every single day. They say the hardest thing is not to get in this league, but to stay in this league.”
**On his mindset going into any and every game:**
“My approach is to come out and try to win the game. To just come out and play hard for my team — I’m not coming out here to show other people what I can do, I’m here for my guys, my team, my coaching staff.”
**On the tampering case involving Jalen Brunson and the Knicks, and whether or not New York circumvented the cap:**
“I don’t know, I just think there was a lot at play there.”
**On whether the punishment was sufficient:**
“That’s behind me, we’re proud of JB, we’re proud of everything. Was I happy that they only got dinged for a second-round pick? No. No, it should’ve been far worse. But, it is what it is.”