Mike Brown wanted the final game of the season on Friday against Charlotte Hornets To be a dress rehearsal – a final tuning before opening night.
Instead, it became another reminder of how little time his full circle had together.
the Nix Starting center Mitchell Robinson removed from load management and Josh Hart detained, Carl Anthony CitiesAnd OG Anunoby is out for precautionary reasons. On paper, it’s October maintenance. In fact, four key players or key rotation pieces are missing valuable reps in a new system less than a week before the regular season begins on October 22 against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
For a team that talks about its championship aspirations, this is not ideal.
Hart has not played since the opening match of the season in Abu Dhabi, where he scored just seven minutes before being forced off due to lower back spasms. He entered camp resigned to the fact that he would play the season with a splint on his right ring finger — and was seen walking gingerly on the floor of Madison Square Garden before tipoff on Friday.
Robinson has not played since the first half of the Knicks’ Oct. 9 win over the Timberwolves. Meanwhile, Anunoby has now had two minor setbacks in training camp — first a hand sprain that sidelined him in the opener, then an ankle pinch during practice that sidelined him on Friday. Towns, who is dealing with a quad problem, sat for the second straight game after missing Monday’s loss to Washington.
Out of a possible total of 985 minutes through the Knicks’ first four preseason games plus one overtime period, the team’s top six players have logged just 287 minutes. Hart played seven. Robinson, forty-four.
This is not the kind of rhythm-building that Brown envisioned heading into his first season at the helm.
“I like having everyone together, especially trying to play the way we play — it’s new for everyone,” Brown said before tipoff on Friday. “But it is what it is. Whether we have everyone or not, this is a marathon, not a sprint. We hope to be sharp on opening night, but the goal is to keep moving forward.”
The biggest challenge facing Brown now is not planning, but timing. He’s trying to install new principles of speed, spacing and defensive aggression, and every missed practice or game represents a missed iteration toward consistency.
“They are learning quickly — actually a little ahead of where I thought we would be,” he said. “But the guys that came out, they’re the key pieces to what we’re trying to do. They didn’t get the reps, and for us, playing from top to bottom is going to take longer than I thought it would, maybe because of the injuries.”
“We have players who can make plays when their numbers are called, and that’s what I’m looking forward to seeing.”
Brown chooses to view the setback as an opportunity. The Knicks were the healthiest team in basketball last season, losing the fewest games to injury league-wide. He knows that history rarely repeats itself. Robinson, Anunoby, Towns, and Hart each carry different levels of injury concern, so the early absence of key names could serve as useful preparation for the inevitable move forward.
“I’ve said this before: Anytime you’re missing guys, it’s the next guy up,” Brown said. “Knock on wood, we may be missing players during the season. So this is just another opportunity for players to step up and get a chance to play. We’ll go out and play with whoever is available.”
Brown remains confident that his group will be ready when the lights come on for real.
“Mitch is load management, yeah,” he said. “If it was a regular-season game — or a playoff game — for all I know, Mitch would have played.”
It’s preseason patience right now. But when the clock starts counting, the Browns’ players will have to answer the buzzer.