Knicks Bulletin: ‘We don’t care what anyone else says. We gotta figure it out’

New York City will either cheer contenders or jeer pretenders at tea time on Sunday.

No game on Saturday for the Knicks, which is pretty much the best news for a team that has nothing going for it and would rather be off the schedule than playing for more losses.

New York, however, is back hosting a game on Sunday afternoon as the Milwaukee Buckos arrive in town to grace the famous hardwood of MSG.

Here’s what we’ve heard from Coach Thibs and a few Knickerbockers in the past few hours.

Tom Thibodeau

On the need to maintain confidence during the ups and downs of the regular season.

“It’s a long season. The idea is to be playing your best at the end.

“There’s going to be bumps in the road. How do we get through those things? Are we mentally tough when we face adversity? And can we grow?

“That’s where the focus has to be, on growing and getting better.

You can take a snippet out of any season and say this is what it is, and then you can wait to the end to know what it is. So is it bad? Is it good? It could be better. Do we want it to be better? Yeah.

“The reality is this is where our record is, we’re third in the East, we’d like to be first.”

Jalen Brunson

On the Knicks’ defensive woes and room for improvement.

“I mean, we have a lot of potential. We just gotta continue to keep building to get there.”

On building resilience.

“I feel like we do have the talent to compete, but it’s not always talent. It’s all about just building every single day.

“Sometimes you can do the right things and fail, and sometimes you can do the wrong things and have success.

“[Friday] we did the wrong things and failed, so that’s the difference. But every single day, we just got to keep building, keep chipping away. Just not lose faith, not lose confidence.”

Mikal Bridges

On the impact of bad shooting on the team’s defensive efforts.

“Even after missed shots, we still need to hold each other accountable and communicate on defense.”

On his shooting struggles of late after it looked like he’d found his rhythm.

“Just got to make them. I think I’ve been short on a lot of them these last couple of games. Just got to put a little more lift on them. Been short on almost all of them. Just put more legs in it.”

Josh Hart

On the need to put in stronger efforts nightly no matter the circumstances.

“Sometimes like that Celtics game the first game of the year, sometimes the team is just unbelievable in terms of shooting the ball and knocking down everything. And sometimes you can live with that.

“But we can’t live with going out there and not executing and not having intensity.”

On whether the Knicks can be a top team when all is said and done.

“We’re a new group. We’re still learning, figuring it out. But we can’t expect to just have talent and go out there and win games. We’ve got to lock in and compete.

“I think we’re all confident in ourselves. At the end of the day, we’ve got to continue to build, we’ve got to continue to grow, and that has nothing to do with the opponent.

“I don’t care if it’s the Celtics, OKC, or whoever’s struggling in the league; at the end of the day, we’ve got to focus on what we can focus on. That’s the people in this locker room.

“We can’t focus on, ‘Oh, this one win is going to show us and show everyone else that we can contend.’ We don’t care what anyone else says. At the end of the day, we gotta figure it out in this locker room.”

Sam Mitchell (Former NBA Player)

On the Knicks’ depth and Thibs’ use of a top-heavy rotation.

“At some point, the Knicks got to figure out their bench. They got to start figuring out who on that bench has some type of role.

“Whether it’s defensively, offensively or whatever, that can provide a punch, because you can’t keep playing five guys 40 minutes per game.”