The New York Knicks' regular season last year wasn't the best by any means, but head coach Mike Brown had a purpose behind his approach. Brown used different lineups throughout the season to determine what worked and what didn't.
When the postseason arrived, he knew which rotations to rely on in certain situations. It was a strategy that paid off after being implemented from the beginning of the regular season.
“Brown was brought in partly to, and partly won a championship off, the willingness to use the regular season to experiment over trying to maximize wins. He installed a brand new offensive system, shortened starters’ minutes to save them for the rigors of the postseason, and constantly tried new players and lineups,” SNY’s David Vertsberger wrote.
Brown has tried taking the same approach this season, but it hasn't worked as well early on. New York picked up its first win on Tuesday night, but after starting the season 0-3, Brown didn't hold back when discussing the team's struggles.
“Our crap stinks. It does. And we're the only ones that can do something about it,” Brown said.
The Knicks head coach has already experimented with something he didn't do much of last season. This time, it involved Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns. Brown wanted to try a different approach, but it didn't work as planned, as there were stretches when both stars were on the bench.
“My big experimentation was playing KAT and Jalen in two stretches together. And so the middle of [the game], I had both KAT and Jalen off the floor. We didn’t really do that last year. Watching it, I think we did it in the preseason some, but we didn’t play everybody all the time so it was a little harder, but watching it, I didn’t like it,” Brown told the media.
It's safe to say Brown will likely take that option off the table for the foreseeable future after seeing how it played out. Still, it was another lineup experiment that provided valuable information about what doesn't work for this team.
New York needs Brunson and Towns on the court together as much as possible, and having both stars on the bench at the same time can disrupt the team's offensive flow. Now, Brown will have to look at other lineup combinations that could give the Knicks better results moving forward.
