First of three days off for New York but we keep hearing from the team.
Quite a break for the New York Knicks before they get back to action on Saturday following back-to-back wins on Monday and Tuesday.
New York will host the resurging Sacramento Kings on Saturday, but for now, they will enjoy a much-needed few days off, getting some reps in the gym and hearing Tom Thibodeau’s whispers.
Here’s what Coach Thibs and other Knickerbockers have said in the past few hours.
Tom Thibodeau
On OG Anunoby’s defensive instincts:
“You want him to be himself and take advantage of the strengths that he has, but you also have to build team responsibilities.
“You can’t just randomly run around and do things. If your teammates don’t know what you’re doing, then you’re gonna expose the entire team. So it’s making sure that you fulfill team responsibilities and then go from there and use your instincts.”
On the bad officiating on Jalen Brunson:
“I just want to take a look at that last play on the drive, I don’t know.
“I send clips in [to the league]. I do it all. What goes on with him is ridiculous. It really is. I’ll leave it at that.”
On the need for officiating consistency:
“My thing is I just want consistency. It’s obvious what happened on that (Brunson) drive. It was a take foul in the first quarter.
“I don’t know what the discrepancy in the free throws was, but it was big [it was 25 to 14 for the Nets]. It was big. And we’re attacking the basket.
“A guy gets fouled you’ve got to call it. It’s your job.”
On the refs forgetting their whistles at home for the game against the Nets:
“I hate to harp on it. But I want to look at the film because I did not like the way that game went.”
When asked about officiating bias:
“Write what you see.”
Jalen Brunson
On OG Anunoby’s defense:
“It’s a scary sight. Not gonna lie.
“When you see someone like that lunging at you with bad intentions, it’s scary.”
On the no-call on D’Angelo Russell during the game against the Nets:
“No comment. I couldn’t think of anything clever enough (to tell you).”
Josh Hart
On his “egos” and “agendas” comments:
“Y’all look too much into everything. That’s what y’all do. I said something about egos and y’all took that and ran with it.
“To win, you have to have a team that don’t have egos. That’s why Boston won. They have a team that doesn’t have egos. You got Jrue Holiday that’s been an All-Star, All-Defense, All-NBA, max player. He don’t give a damn about scoring.
“So that’s the ego-less attitude that we have to have. There was no pinpointing somebody. But that’s what you have to have to win.”
Kendrick Perkins (Former NBA Player)
On the Timberwolves-Knicks trade being one of the worst in history from Minny’s perspective:
“They’re the most disappointing team and the way that it’s trending right now, they’re on the verge of making the worst trade in NBA history in trading Karl-Anthony Towns.”
On Anthony Edwards’ struggles now that he doesn’t have Towns around:
“And everyone keeps talking about, ‘Oh, Anthony Edwards, he’s not attacking the basket, he’s shooting so many three-point shots…’ He has no choice! Because he’s on the floor with Rudy Gobert and Julius Randle, and the paint is crowded.
“I understand the money Karl-Anthony Towns was making, they had to make a business decision, but they’re gonna have to live with it because they chose Rudy Gobert over Karl-Anthony Towns.”