Knicks Bulletin: ‘Sometimes, you have to get your (expletive) kicked’

New York beat Detroit for the 16th consecutive time and we got to hear from the protagonists.

If you tuned into Friday’s game late—as late as the end of the first quarter, you could as well switch your old telly off because everything was already said and done by then.

The Knicks gave the Pistons no option as New York conquered Detroit for the 16th consecutive time, beating the lowly, rebuilding, struggling Motown Men 128-98 in a no-contest affair.

Here’s what Coach Thibs, a few Knickerbocker players, and friend J.B.B had to say before and after the game.

Tom Thibodeau

On teamwork and the improving offense:

“When we work together, our offense is going to be really good.”

On the Knicks’ ball movement on Friday:

“It started with our defense and activity.”

On Karl-Anthony Towns’ diverse skill set helping the Knicks offensive scheme:

“KAT and his skill set, you have to be up on him. And then what it does is it opens up the cutting, and the harder we cut, the more we’re going to get easy buckets, we’re going to get open 3s.

“Then his willingness to share the ball and make plays for his teammates. And with Jalen, they’re developing really good chemistry off it.”

On Towns’ evolution since entering the league and adapting to the Knicks:

“Every year is different, and everybody starts over. Sometimes you bring back the exact same guys and it’s different. So you have to start at a zero base and go from there. We have a lot of work to do, as do all of the teams in the league. The teams that can make that commitment to do it day after day do improve.”

On OG Anunoby’s defensive skill set:

“There are things about him that are so unique and different—size, speed and anticipation.”

On Precious Achiuwa’s rehab progress as he’s already joined the team on the road trip:

“He’s doing a little more on the court. Once a guy can start doing stuff on the court, then usually he’ll travel with us. Sometimes it’s better to keep him back [in New York] because we can do more rehab stuff at the facility.

“So it’s a case-by-case situation. So he’s making good, steady progress. But he hasn’t actually gone through a real practice yet.”

On Jalen Brunson’s playmaking and team movement:

“I thought he read the game really well. I thought his playmaking was very effective and that’s what I like.

“There was a lot of cutting going on, which generated good opportunities for us.

“I think when you help somebody else, oftentimes you’re helping yourself. And so I thought that’s what generated a lot of good looks for us.”

On the team’s shooting efficiency and 3-point strategy:

“We’re shooting a good percentage. I want us taking good shots. I think we’re third in offensive rating. We’re shooting a very high field-goal percentage. We’re shooting a high percentage from 3.

“But the volume needs to go up so we share in that responsibility.”

Josh Hart

On the Knicks striving to play a full 48 minutes of great basketball:

“We’re striving for an unattainable goal. I don’t think anybody or any team in the history of the NBA has played a full 48 minutes—Boston on ring night’s close.

“It’s an unattainable goal and we know that, but it’s something we know we’ve got to build to get to. I’m not sure what we probably played tonight—probably 30 good minutes of good basketball tonight.

“We’re going into Houston next [on Monday] and our goal is to play, you know, at least 32, 33, 34 minutes of good basketball and continue to build and build and build until at the end of the year we’re the best team we can be.”

On the Knicks’ defensive effort and momentum against the Heat:

“We started playing some defense. We locked in, got stops, got out and got good clean shots. We just started building momentum. We knew this was going to a be a tough team. We knew it was going to take the whole game to really kind of get ahead. We kept chipping away, kept chipping away until we finally made that run.”

On Brunson finally passing to him on a cut in Miami:

“Yeah, he finally found me on the cut. I’ve been cutting all year. He finally found me.”

Jalen Brunson

On Friday’s win over the Pistons:

“Just the way we kept fighting. I don’t think we took our foot off the gas—maybe just a couple of minutes in the second. I really liked our defense today.”

On the team play and aggressiveness against Detroit:

“We were just trying to make the right play at the right time while still trying to stay aggressive. Any given night, we have a bunch of guys who can have big nights on the stat sheet.”

On the increasing three-point shot attempts each passing game:

“Ball was going in.

“Still gotta work on a couple of other things, but we’re starting to put the pieces together a little bit. I’m happy with where we are. We’ve gotta continue to get better.”

On Deuce McBride’s improvement and his work ethic:

“It’s not surprising. You see how hard people work, and you see what they do on a daily basis, and once the opportunity comes, I mean, they’re going to be ready for it.

“I think Deuce has always had the confidence. It’s what’s going happen, go out there to do what you can and change the game, whether it’s on offense or defense.”

On his current business off the court and making up for the money he left on the table in his contract extension:

“I feel like it’s going pretty good.”

On filming all his commercial clips before the start of the season:

“I think for the first time in my career, I tried to get everything done, like shoot-wise, appearance-wise, in August and September, my last one during training camp. In-season, I try not to do anything.”

On winning and its effects off-court:

“The more we win, the more off-court stuff comes on our plate. I feel like in New York, you have to capitalize on everything.”

Mikal Bridges

On Karl-Anthony Towns’ defensive leadership:

“KAT, his improvement from Game 1 to now… Only been a couple games, but his improvement—because you know the big is in a lot of actions, so hearing him with the ball-screen coverage has made everybody and personally me just better on the ball because I know there’s a screen.”

On the Knicks defensive dynamics:

“You go back to the last game and growth and day by day, game by game. You see in the Miami game, having the same situation with Cleveland with, at one point being up and then being down and how you’re going to react.

“I think we came out and just went straight to it. Covering up for each other. There was a lot of team defense and helping each other out.

“Maybe somebody gets blown by, and maybe even if it’s not your rotation and just pulling out the fire just stepping up and help your teammate out on that.”

Karl-Anthony Towns

On playing despite his wrist injury:

“I made it happen. I made it happen tonight.”

Deuce McBride

On adapting his role right after getting drafted by the Knicks:

“Coming out of college, I kind of had a feeling like, ‘all right, I’m going to a good team, good players.’

“We had just brought in Kemba (Walker) and Evan Fournier, so I had an understanding, all right, my first couple years in the league, I might really have to, you know, just grind, just grind.”

On stepping up following last season’s trades:

“When I saw (the Barrett/Quickley trade), I felt there would kind of be no choice but for me to step up.

“I’m not thinking about, like, individually, I have to step up so I can, you know, do something, you know, great. But I was trying to win as a team.

“You can’t really think about those things. I was just focused, like, all right, how can I fit into the role that I’m going to be given?”

J.B. Bickerstaff (Detroit Pistons Head Coach)

On learning from the tough defeat against New York:

“Sometimes, you have to get your ass kicked in order to learn the hard way.”

On the Pistons’ loss and lack of competitiveness:

“We didn’t approach the game in a mature fashion.

“It was just too easy. That’s part of the competition.”

On his expectations for the Pistons:

“I don’t care if you make mistakes, I don’t care if a guy just gets the best of you because these guys are the best players on the planet, but our expectation is that we compete at a high level for 48 minutes no matter who we are.

“Our expectation is that we’re going to be a physical basketball team. We’re going to be a defensive-minded team. It was clear, to start that game, we weren’t those things.

“You get what you ask for in this league.”

On having to earn respect from opponents:

“Because we’ve been so competitive in these games, people are showing you a different level of respect. They are going to bring their A-game to start games.

“The Knicks are obviously a really good basketball team, but when you earn people’s respect, they are not going to just turn it on and try to figure it out late in the game.

“They are coming out to match that energy that we’ve been playing with, that competitiveness that we’ve been playing with.”