Mike Brown was expected to do more after succeeding the former head coach Tom Thibodeau, who had won over 51 games for the New York Knicks.
With a learning curve to utilize players, where preseason is the best time to do it, the newly appointed head tactician came up with a surprising starting five for the Knicks.
Brown has started Mitchell Robinson at center and Karl-Anthony Towns at the four in a double big lineup that was expected to be seen in the regular season, per Zach Braziller of the New York Post.
“The length on the floor is just unbelievable, when you’re playing KAT at the four, playing OG (Anunoby) at the 3, Mikal (Bridges) at the 2,” Brown said. “That’s a big, long team, with a lot of interchangeable parts. And then offensively, not just for KAT, but for the rest of the group, it just gives you a different look. You’d think that group should be able to offensive rebound at a high level, which is one of our staples.”
Despite a big five, the two-time Coach of the Year believes they can still reach these heights, but will adjust for times when it will not work.
“First of all, he’s a great runner. Not a good runner, a great runner,” Brown said. “And he’s got to — like all of us — play at this pace, especially all the time. We don’t wanna do it most of the time, we wanna do it all the time.”
While Thibodeau tried this pairing bigmans for just 17 games as Robinson appeared to be suffering from an ankle injury.
Brown will play Robinson a lot due to his rim protection and dominant rebounding, as he averaged 4.7 points and 7.1 rebounds in the postseason last year.
