DETROIT — Mike Brown knows what it takes to be NBA Coach of the Year. He’s done it twice during his career with different teams and won four NBA championships as an assistant.
Now the coach of the New York Knicks, Brown believes Detroit Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff has as strong a case as anyone around the league to win the award this season.
“I’ve said this before. J.B. Bickerstaff’s doing a heck of a job. There’s a handful of guys that should be considered for Coach of the Year and he’s definitely one,” Brown said ahead of Monday night’s game between the Pistons and Knicks. “J.B. has this team believing, not just in the process, but in each other. You can feel it. They have an identity that they hang their hat on every single night.”
Bickerstaff has the Pistons humming as the top team in the Eastern Conference at 26-9, ahead of Brown’s Knicks team by three games heading into their first head-to-head matchup of the season.
Detroit owns a top-10 offensive rating and the No. 2 defensive rating in the league that is at the heart of the team’s early success.
“The physicality that they bring to the table, their ability to rebound, their ability to guard, those things are second to none when it comes to looking at this team,” Brown said. “And we have to match their physicality and not exceed it, especially trying to keep them off the glass. And then we got to try to get out and run so they don’t get to set their defense all the time against us, because it’s very good.”
After guiding the Pistons’ historic turnaround last season to reach the playoffs for the first time since 2019 as the 7-seed, Bickerstaff also oversaw the franchise’s first win in the postseason in nearly 20 years.
However, the season came to an end in the first round with a 4-2 series loss to the Knicks — led by Tom Thibodeau at the time.
Brown, a [longtime friend and colleague to Bickerstaff and his family](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6937828/2026/01/05/mike-brown-knicks-jb-bickerstaff-pistons-babysitting-jelly-roll/), enters the fray trying to get the Knicks to the NBA Finals, but as the midway point in the season approaches, the Eastern Conference is currently running through Detroit.
“They’re still well coached. I think offensively, there’s more tempo, more side-to-side movement, getting the ball out of (guard Jalen) Brunson’s hands, getting them to another side and then getting the ball back to him,” Bickerstaff said Monday. “Because of injuries, they’ve been forced to play a few different types of lineups or quite a few different lineups. But, at the core of it, it comes down to putting their best players in position to be successful. And I think Mike’s done a great job of that.”
While Bickerstaff and the Pistons are experiencing life at the top of the conference, awards are far from being secured by anyone in the league.
The chance to face the team right behind them in the East and the one who booted the Pistons from their first postseason together can be the kind of showcase moment that gets remembered at the end of the season.