Jalen Brunson reveals 3 keys to ending Knicks’ slump after players-only meeting

TARRYTOWN, N.Y. – The New York Knicks are struggling to translate intent to results, having lost nine of their last eleven games. Like team captain Jalen Brunson said before the season, after Monday night’s loss to the Dallas Mavericks, and after practice on Tuesday: they’ll adapt if they want to win.

“You are going to have ups and downs. We have to manage them the best we can. We are not managing our down right now the best we can…even if we’re not winning, we gotta just play better. I said this last night. I can live with the result of us playing hard and come down to the wire losing or just playing solid basketball. We’re not even doing that. So we just got to get back to what we do,” Brunson told reporters at the team’s practice facility.

After a successful NBA Cup title run in Las Vegas in mid-December, the team is 7-11. This Knicks roster is largely the same group that made the Eastern Conference Finals and literally the same group that won the NBA’s third in-season tournament. Where did that team go?

Since the NBA Cup Championship, the Knicks have played 10 of their 18 games on the road. They’ve played every other day in that time, aside from two pairs of back-to-backs and an extra day of rest before their loss in Sacramento. It’s not the team’s first four-game losing streak of the season, but it’s part of a larger sample of disappointing basketball.

After the rough loss to the Mavericks, fifth-year guard Miles McBride offered that Knicks players may have gotten too comfortable with their early-season success. Asked by ClutchPoints about McBride’s comments, Brunson initially downplayed them before cutting himself off to agree.

“I don’t know if we got too, um,” Brunson said before pausing. “I could see that. Just because of, obviously, you play in the Cup, it’s like a playoff-type game. And going back to a regular-season game, it’s different. But it’s something we should be able to manage. It’s still basketball, it’s still our job. It’s still something we have to be able to manage and do with great energy, regardless of the situation, regardless of the stakes or whatever. That could be a part of it, but we’re better than that.”

Brunson’s 3 keys to get Knicks back on track start with defense

Brunson has drawn a line in the sand several times since Brown’s hiring, making clear that Knicks players are either willing to adapt to the new coach’s system or do not want to win. After Monday’s loss, he added that the team will turn things around if they care enough to get it done. Asked on Tuesday if he’s concerned they don’t, Brunson made clear that they need to show it.

“No,” the point guard responded. “We just have to care about what we are doing. We just need a little more from us.”

Effort is the first area the star marked as needing improvement. Next came defense, when Brunson may have sounded most like the son of an NBA coach.

“We got to be a team that, when our shot is not falling how it was in the first half, that we’re making up for it with the little things. Like defensively, our rotations, doing all the little things. Things that I’ve been stressing for as long as I can remember, since I was back in college. It was just the little things that we have to do. When offensively, shots aren’t falling, and we’re getting good shots, we have to rely on us playing defensively,” Brunson told reporters.

He tied the first two areas together when asked why the team has struggled to grind out close games like they might have last year, or the season before. His response made his stance on the group’s mentality clear amid this stretch of discord.

“It’s our mindset. It’s our mindset. Our mindset has to be better. We can’t focus on the things we can’t control. We can control effort and the way we play defensively. On that side of the ball, it doesn’t take as much skill. We just have to connect it better,” the point guard explained.

Winning won’t cure all for slumping Knicks, but it’s a start

Brunson’s Knicks face off against the 12-29 Brooklyn Nets at home on Wednesday night. A win would not represent a solution to the troubles that have plagued the team in recent weeks or clear their path to the playoffs.

New York won its first game after the NBA Cup by one point because of clutch heroics from Brunson. Brown said after Tuesday’s practice that regardless of the outcome, that was when the group’s troubles began to surface.

It’s the process against the Nets that will matter most. After all, that’s what Brown was brought in to tweak to perfection. The mid-season results weren’t supposed to matter until the team began to surprise itself with its poor play.

Brunson’s Knicks say they know how to get back on track. They say they want to do it. They’ll have their chance to prove it. Just about two weeks remain until the trade deadline. Time for them to show they’re the right group for the rest of the way.

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