Knicks look more like title-winners in first win after 'hiccups' mar season's first week

After three straight defeats to open their title defense, the Knicks were looking to put together something more of a complete game when they hosted the Detroit Pistons on Tuesday night.

When New York fell behind by 13 after the game's opening quarter, things looked bleak. But then the home side flexed a muscle that had been dormant during the first week as they dominated the middle quarters, outscoring Detroit 63-25, which meant the lackluster final stanza could be overshadowed by the 111-97 win.

"We talk about trying to string a game together… 48 minutes of basketball the way we know how to play, and we like to play,” head coach Mike Brown said after the win. “And we had some lulls where we weren't as physical as we should have been throughout the course of the game, but we had some really good moments. 

“We had more good moments in this game in totality than we did in the first three games, and that's why we got the win.” 

Overall, it was a positive step for the Knicks, who still know much more needs to be done to regain the feel of last year’s unit.

"We can have some hiccups,” Brown said of the early struggles. “That's what the [regular] season's for. It’s trying to correct it, so come playoff time, you're ready to go do what you need to do. So is it fixed? No, it ain’t fixed. Nothing's really fixed. 

“What tonight shows us is we're more than capable if we put our minds to it. And that’s what we gotta continue to try to build off. And then if we do slip up, that we don’t slip up for eight minutes or 10 minutes. Maybe for a minute and a half, two minutes, and then we get back, regroup, and get back heading in the right direction again."

Karl-Anthony Towns, who had a 27–point, 20-rebound explosion, said the Knicks “looked more like ourselves from last year, but we still have a lot of room to grow.”

“We got to remember that Rome wasn't built in a day,” Jalen Brunson, who scored 23 points on the night, said in his on-court interview after the game. “This is a new year, new team. Adversity started early, so we just gotta fight back.” 

“We have a long way to go, but obviously we want to learn from wins as much as we do from losses. Excited we came up with the win today.” 

It is a long season, as the head coach was sure to point out, but positive signs were abundant.

“I still believe we took some really good shots,” Brown said. “I believe if we keep taking the shots that we're taking, they're going to start going in sooner than later. But our guys played an overall good game. On the offensive glass, defensively physically, offensively physically.”

The defensive performance shouldn't be overlooked. Brown pointed to the “hot players” the Knicks had keyed in on in the previous game against the Magic, Desmond Bane and Tristan da Silva,who shot a combined 9-for-18 from three, which “had a huge impact” in the 111-102 defeat.

“The guys that we labeled hot tonight, two of the guys were obviously Duncan Robinson and [Daniss] Jenkins, and they were combined 3-for-16,” Brown said. “So our awareness, our level of physicality, throughout the 48 minutes were a lot better on those two guys in the previous game.”

With no rest on the docket and a date Wednesday night in Chicago with the Bulls, the only thing on Towns’ mind after getting the first win of the season out of the way: “Gotta get the next one.”

“Build off of this game and continue to improve as a team,” Towns said. “All year it’s gonna be us improving, going through the ups and downs of a season. We just gotta stay steady, keep believing in each other, keep pushing each other to another level.”