After a shaky 2-3 start to the season, including a 10-point loss to the Chicago Bulls on Friday, Steve Popper of Newsday questioned whether the New York Knicks’ offseason coaching change was essential – or if the organization may have tried to “fix something that wasn’t broken.”
Despite reaching the Eastern Conference Finals last season under Tom Thibodeau, the Knicks’ front office opted to make a bold change, hiring Mike Brown as head coach.
Brown was brought in to implement a faster, more modern offensive approach and to spread playing time more evenly across the roster.
However, as Popper notes, much of New York’s personnel was assembled to suit Thibodeau’s slower, defense-first system, and the adjustment has not gone smoothly.
That contrast was especially clear in the loss to Chicago, a team built for speed and transition play, as the Knicks surrendered 135 points.
Popper wrote that the new system seems to have particularly affected Karl-Anthony Towns, who is being asked to spend more time at power forward instead of his natural center position.
The shift has required him to run the floor more like a wing – a role Popper suggests doesn’t fully fit his skill set.
Towns avoided discussing his individual role after the game, but his postgame comments revealed the team’s growing frustration.
“Just obviously we’re not happy,” he said. “We had three winnable games and we didn’t do enough to close the game out. For someone like us, that was our identity last year – close games we usually win. So obviously it’s a different feeling not being able to close the games out.”
Knicks Notes: Coaching Change, Towns, Hart, Robinson https://t.co/FCZpLkLAgD pic.twitter.com/gQBThJoxKJ
— Hoops Rumors (@HoopsRumors) November 1, 2025
