Mike Brown Is Turning Skeptics Into Believers | Defector

Mike Brown’s Knicks run forces New York fans to reconsider earlier condemnation of him as an incompetent retread. The team’s upcoming Finals opponent will come from a hard-fought series, leaving time for Knicks to potentially revisit their stance on Brown. Brown was initially criticized for replacing Tom Thibodeau, but his performance over time has earned him broad acceptance. If the Knicks had ended their season earlier, firing demands would have been unusually unanimous. Brown is not credited as the sole reason for wins, but his smart offensive adjustments have raised the team’s ceiling and allowed players to thrive within his system.

"At least for now, anyway. There is still another series to be played, and the team the Knicks will face in their first NBA Finals since 1999 will have just emerged from a ferocious rock fight that is barely halfway done. This means that there is still time for them to turn back to their original position on him, which was "We should have hired Tiago Splitter instead of this retread boob." Doctrinal error is always something that the person committing the error will try to justify as soon as possible."

"For the moment, though, Mike Brown is on citywide scholarship. The man condemned on day one for replacing Tom Thibodeau-and remember that Brown didn't fire Thibs, just replaced him-has on day 323 become a genius in the town that wanted so much to hate him. Indeed, if the Knicks had behaved as they normally do, and wrapped their season up when they usually do, the demand for Brown's immediate firing would be a rare point of consensus among New Yorkers."

"And now they have to acknowledge that Mike Brown is not in fact a sad and incompetent retread who couldn't keep a job in Sacramento but a coach who has at the very least not ruined a team on the come up, and at most subtly retooled his team's M.O. in a way that helped it go from intriguing pretender to potential juggernaut. Like almost every NBA coach ever, Brown is not the reason why his team wins."

"But, as good coaches do, he has made enough smart and subtle offensive touches to raise that unit's ceiling, and then let the players thrive within"

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