Knicks Coach Perplexed By Preseason Pounding

"Great film to learn from, because we made a lot of mistakes that have been uncharacteristic of who we are so far," Brown continued. "Even in practice, we've played a lot better than this, in terms of understanding what we're trying to do offensively and defensively."

Active Knicks thus more or less made up celebrity row as franchise faces Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns were held out alongside their fellow regular starters (OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Mitchell Robinson), as well as notable subs like Josh Hart and Landry Shamet.

The game thus used the preseason for its intended purposes of roster experimentation and figuring out who will get the final spots. To that end, the Knicks (3-1) placed transactional newcomers Malcolm Brogdon, Jordan Clarkson, and Guerschon Yabusele in the starting five alongside second unit mainstay Miles McBride and embattled 2024 first-round pick Pacome Dadiet.

Despite an exciting start headlined by consecutive threes for Dadiet, things went downhill for the Knicks fairly quickly: Washington went on a 14-4 run to create a lead that proved permanent in the three-plus minutes after the latter triple, headlined by what became a double-double effort for Marvin Bagley. In the second, they were outscored 23-7 over the final 6:05, setting the stage for an embarrassing 75-52 margin at the break.

The Wizards then conjured up the first 11 tallies of the second half as their lead inflated to 36 before the reserves' reserves finally managed to somehow beautify the final. To make matters even more uncomfortable, Washington (1-1) was only about 24 hours removed from its preseason opener from the weekend and also rested some of its main men such as CJ McCollum, Khris Middleton, and Alex Sarr.

Brown did find fleeting positives in his otherwise dour analysis, specifically praising the 20-point effort from Tyler Kolek while Tosan Evbuomwan was "really good for us." Evbuomwan hit all three of his tries from the field and was a team-best plus-17 in 16 minutes—but that hardly made a dent in the score with all five starters sitting at minus-20 or worse.

Particularly perturbing in terms of the night's attractions was perhaps the play of Yabusele, whose time in the top center's spot with Robinson and Towns out was headlined by a team-worst minus-33 and, even more glaringly, a minus-12 margin in the rebounding department.

The backups' success, however, simply made things more for the Knicks, who have one more preseason game against Charlotte at the end of this week before things get real.

"Offensively, we didn't do anything different when that second group came in," Brown said while trying to look at the silver linings. Guys just spaced the floor, they tried to play with pace. It wasn't there all the time, but they tried to do it ... Great learning experience. We'll all grow from it and hopefully take a step forward instead of thinking we took a step backwards because we didn't play well tonight."