3 Improvements Mike Brown Must Make to Maximize Knicks

The New York Knicks coaching search has finally come to an official end. After firing Tom Thibodeau a few days removed from their heartbreaking Eastern Conference Finals loss to Indiana, New York embarked on a hiring process that was widely criticized by the media and NBA landscape. Many disagreed with the franchise requesting interview access to several active coaches, calling it a blatant attempt to poach a coach from another organization. Whatever we call the attempts, they were unsuccessful. So, President Leon Rose and owner James Dolan moved on to a new group of potential leaders, featuring Taylor Jenkins, Mike Brown, Micah Nori, Dawn Staley, and others. Eventually, New York landed on Mike Brown, inking a 4-year, $40M contract.

Brown is an established, successful coach who has led three franchises for a total of 11 seasons and 758 games. He’s built an impressive 454-304 record (.599), has been to the playoffs seven times, and made the NBA Finals in 2007. Brown is perhaps most famous for leading the Cavaliers for five years during LeBron James‘ first tenure in Cleveland. In many ways, Brown is similar to Thibodeau’s hard-nosed, detail-oriented approach. He will bring a certain legitimacy to New York, and he should get the most out of this Knicks team. However, his time leading one of the NBA’s iconic franchises will be defined by wins and losses. Here are three things he must get right to bring NY to the mountaintop.

3 Improvements Mike Brown Must Make to Maximize Knicks

1. Optimize New York’s Lineups

There are a few aspects of basketball that Tom Thibodeau failed miserably at in his tenure with the Knicks, and it ultimately got him fired. Brown’s primary role will be continuing Thibs’ strengths while improving his weaknesses to maximize NY’s potential. The first is deploying better lineup combinations throughout games. In the 2025 playoffs, New York’s lineup usage was jarringly poor. Their top three combinations all had severe negative net ratings, which is stunning for a team that made it within two games of the Finals. Thibodeau’s refusal to deviate from his top lineups despite terrible performance on the court put his team behind in every game, and he never adjusted until it was too late. One could argue that his inability to maximize the five-man groups he put on the floor legitimately cost New York a Finals birth.

The best way for Brown to change this will be to switch up the starting lineup. Remove Josh Hart and replace him with Mitchell Robinson or Miles McBride. Groupings with one or both of them with three or four starters excelled, while Hart’s lineups generally struggled. This was the case in both the regular season and postseason. To simplify things, NY’s starting five (Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, Hart, OG Anunoby, and Karl-Anthony Towns) was mediocre in the regular year and abysmal in the postseason (-6.2 net rating in 335 minutes). Despite these hard truths, Thibodeau played them 270 more minutes than the next most-used group (65 minutes).

2. Minutes Distribution

It’s no secret that Tom Thibodeau’s minutes distribution has been an issue for a long time in NYC. He favors his starters and distrusts his bench and young players more than any other coach in basketball. It seems that Rose, Dolan, and company finally decided that Thibs would never change his stripes, leading to his departure. New York had three starters in the top ten in total minutes played in 2024-25, with Bridges and Hart ranking first and second. Thibodeau routinely played starters over 40 minutes in meaningless regular-season games and often left his guys in with insurmountable leads late in the fourth quarter.

Brown needs to switch up the strategy when it comes to minutes, and he has the resources to do so. NY added depth in signing Jordan Clarkson and Guerschon Yabusele, both reliable veteran players off the bench. Brown’s rotation should at least feature nine quality bodies, better than the seven that Thibodeau worked with in 2025. Additionally, he would do well to give sophomores Tyler Kolek, Ariel Hukporti, and Pacome Dadiet a chance to earn playing time. Their development is crucial to the long-term outlook of the franchise.

3. Maximize The Offense

The last problem with Thibodeau’s coaching performance was his inability to squeeze the juice out of his offense. A group this talented shouldn’t run stale offensive concepts and repeated isolations in the biggest moments, which is what New York’s attack devolved into in the postseason. Brown should aggressively employ the Brunson/Towns pick-and-pop/roll, which was extremely successful in the early season before NY went away from it. He should also lessen Hart’s minutes as a non-shooter to create the five-out spacing we envisioned when the Knicks acquired Towns and Bridges last summer.

Brown should strive to feature lineups with either zero or one non-shooter on the floor to threaten the defense, which he has the personnel to do. Lastly, New York should be running more ball movement offense than Brunson isolations. They’re too talented a group to ignore Bridges, Anunoby, or Towns for extended stretches of games.