Knicks Bulletin: ‘My dad wouldn’t start me, made me the sixth man’

Day off for New York as they gear up to play the Rockets on the road come Monday.

The Knicks earned a Saturday off after trouncing Detroit on Friday but they are expected back in the lab ahead of Monday’s trip to Houston.

As is always the case, our favorite beat reporters out there don’t know how to stop working and we don’t know how to stop covering what they share, either.

With that said, here’s the latest roundup of quotes we’ve been able to fetch from your beloved Knickerbockers and a former No. 1 pick.

Tom Thibodeau

On the Knicks’ defensive versatility and OG’s impact on the game:

“When you see things ahead, it makes you quicker, and that leads to a lot of disruption. And [Anunoby] knows how to read plays. If someone is loose with the ball, he’s very active with his hands.”

Jalen Brunson

On being the son of a coach in the NBA and working with him:

“I think when you’re the son of a coach, regardless of what level, I think you’re consistently talking about what you can do to be better.

“For the most part, at least from my experience, I don’t think there’s any trick to it. It’s just that you’re in this constant mode of learning. Since you have that since you’re a kid, you learn more, you understand more.

“I don’t know. It’s just more of a natural feel.”

On talking with his father all the time:

“[We talk] all the time. College, high school. We don’t talk after games now because we see each other throughout the game. OK, we’ll talk about it tomorrow. I like it. It’s helped me out.”

Karl-Anthony Towns

On playing for his father in AAU:

“My dad wouldn’t start me, made me the sixth man.”

On his father’s influence on his game:

“I think it’s just a credit to my father. He was a high school coach, a damn good one, too, in Jersey, Piscataway. Just being with him every single day, just watching him coach and just garnering IQ every single day. [I learned] the right way to play the game of basketball, ways you could help your team win, and the way he taught me.

“So that’s a shout-out to my father for being the man who taught me the game of basketball at this level.”

Josh Hart

On OG Anunoby’s defensive skill set:

“He’s a defense unto himself. One-on-one, we trust him on anyone. When he’s off the ball, it’s crazy. He pounces. He’s in a gap. He anticipates. He lunges at you. I’ve never seen anything like that.

“First time I saw him do that against Andrew Nembhardt a couple games ago and Andrew Nembhardt, he was like, ‘Oh.’ He was surprised. He had like three back dribbles from that.

“His ability to obviously make plays one-on-one, but he’s able to roam and create havoc. We want him to gamble and make plays himself. We know we’re going to be able to rotate and fly around and put out fires if he doesn’t get the ball.”

On potential nicknames for the Anunoby and Bridges pair:

“We came up with Wing Stop or Wingy Hut Jr., him and Bridges. [It’s] from SpongeBob. Weenie Hut Jr.

“We can go with that one.”

OG Anunoby

On his approach to defending in the NBA:

“See, I don’t see it as gambling. I see it as being aggressive and making the offense uncomfortable. Not just letting them do whatever they want [and] just making them back up or pick up their dribble.”

On Hart’s nicknames:

“Yeah, he said (those nicknames). He says everything. He’ll say something else tomorrow.”

Tyler Kolek

On his role supporting the starters:

“They’re the starters. I just want to make sure they’re getting the shots and work they need.”

Cade Cunningham (Detroit Pistons Player)

On the difficulty of guarding Jalen Brunson:

“He just knows the ins and outs of the game. He knows how to get to his spots. He’s physical and can knock down shots at a high level.

“All of those things make him a really tough guard.

“It takes a group to guard him. We just didn’t execute our gameplan good enough for the first group.”