Why Mike Brown thinks the Knicks are preparing for playoff success after failing in the NBA Cup

NEW YORK – Peaks and valleys tell the story of New York Knicks‘ season so far. Their path to the NBA Finals was open and clear when they were champions of the 2025 NBA Cup in Las Vegas. Their blockbuster workouts and offseason coaching change were in question during the 2-9 slump that followed. And all was well in the eight-game winning streak that followed.

The Knicks showed brilliant potential at the championship level that had a superstar point guard Jalen Brunson in MFA talks. And they essentially shed light on all the questions on which experts and scribes base their doubts.

Head coach Mike Brown he preached the importance of selectively bad memory. The goal is to stay grounded, much like the philosophy of the Knicks teams led by Tom Thibodeau. The coach, two-thirds of the way through his first season with this group, argues that their midseason struggles are a necessary evil that helps lay the foundation for eventual playoff success. He said ahead of their overtime loss to the Indiana Pacers that based on his experience, the Knicks are on the right track.

“You hate to lose games, and I don’t sign up to lose games. But I believe we have to struggle a few times this year. … It’s going to test our resolve as a group. You have to be connected if you want to give yourself a chance. The playoffs are going on, there’s nothing more stressful than that at the NBA level. So that’s your four-game streak. able to hit some adversity, work through it, stay connected and come out of it, hopefully a little stronger than what you’re in.” in, that’s something I’m looking forward to,” Brown told reporters on the eve of the All-Star break.

The Knicks’ path after the All-Star break to a run to the NBA Finals is clear, but not easy

Logical and methodical, Brown is focused on his group playing winning basketball. The coach was asked about the relative decline in production from All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns and focused solely on the games which includes an eight-game winning streak. And when asked what he learned about the Knicks’ players this season, he told the media that he was impressed by the locker room’s problem-solving approach.

“To see the way they handled that 2-9 stretch, it was really good. Because there could have been a lot of finger-pointing, arguments, there could have been a lot of that. And our guys were pretty persistent in trying to find ways to right the ship,” the coach confirmed last Tuesday.

The same structured step-by-step approach as Employed in the Knicks office building their current roster—researching, stockpiling, waiting for attacking opportunities and aggressively executing when they arise—is similar to Brown’s systematic approach to coaching.

He, like many coaches, has basic principles that he wants his team to implement. And the coach seems to have noticed the detail-oriented fervor with which he assigns roles to assistants or purportedly challenges the players in traininginside team captain Jalen Brunson and his teammates. Their responses to adversity so far have included acknowledging the issues at hand, discussing them as a team and working with their coaches to come up with solutions.

That the process was a winning formula so far, all things considered. The ultimate test will still be the postseason, and whether the Knicks can get to that fourth seven-game series.