Mike Brown’s ascension to the elite coaching tier has been under-discussed
Brunson, KAT, OG, Mitch, etc. obviously all get a ton of credit for the championship run. But it seems like there hasn’t been a lot of discourse (relative to other years with other coaches) around how Mike Brown has ascended to the elite tier of coaches in the league.
This year, he spent a lot of the season figuring out how to best utilize the roster. There were growing pains, with players openly questioning their roles. But it paid off as the Knicks basically dominated throughout the playoffs, largely as the result of Mike Brown orchestrating the team to anticipate opponent gameplans and neutralize them. He also had the Knicks running a true Princeton offense which was beautiful and led to the Knicks looking unstoppable at times. He got guys’ trust, got buy-in, then parlayed that into a well-oiled machine that overwhelmed other top-tier playoff competition.
I feel like after Indiana made it to the Finals, when Nick Nurse won the finals, etc. there was much more discussion about how those coaches were elite. That’s been much less of the discourse this year with Brown. That man needs his due!