A three-time NBA champion foresees a Knicks implosion after hearing “rumblings” of a fractured team.
Danny Green, the Long Island product and former Spurs forward, explained in an ESPN media conference call Friday why he has retracted his prediction of the Knicks winning the East.
“Simply because the fact that the Knicks this year, especially late in the season, they looked very up-and-down,” said Green, an ESPN analyst. “They looked like they were disconnected. The chemistry wasn’t there.
“There are rumblings about some guys don’t like Mike Brown or work with the coaches. There are rumblings that some guys are feeling they’re not getting touches or there’s over usage of Jalen Brunson. That seems to me like a team that could self-implode.”
Green, who was a teammate with OG Anunoby on the 2019 championship Raptors, now envisions the Knicks falling in the second round to the Celtics, though that would go against the results of last year’s playoffs. His reasoning is a difference in chemistry — the Celtics have it, Green said, and the Knicks don’t after replacing Tom Thibodeau with Brown.
“[The Knicks] have all the talent, they have all the tools, they have everything, and they were going to beat Boston [last year], regardless of whether Jayson Tatum tore his Achilles or not,” said Green — who won titles with the Spurs, Raptors and Lakers. “But just this year with the coaching change, they seem a little bit more disconnected at the wrong time of year.”
Green didn’t cite specifics, but there were instances during the season when Brown and Karl-Anthony Towns, in particular, didn’t seem to be operating on the same page. And though the Knicks offense ranked fourth in the NBA this season, four of the five starters — outside of Brunson — experienced declines in points and shot attempts per game.
That happened after reports in the summer of players upset about undefined roles under Thibodeau.
Charles Oakley, the former All-Star power forward who attended the previous Knicks-Hawks game a couple of weeks ago in Atlanta, also sees something is off with his former team.
“Last year, it was right there for the Knicks. It was dinner on the table and they went somewhere else like Popeyes,” Oakley said this week on ‘The Bottom Line Sports Show,’ hosted by Gerald Brown and Rick Mahorn. “They got the talent and they’re still fighting within themselves. They don’t really know their roles. And they really don’t really know — KAT and Brunson, that’s their team. OG, Bridges and Hart, use like the fork and knife.”
Still, the Knicks won two more games than last season and finished with 12 wins in their final 16 games. As the third seed Saturday, they hosted the No. 6 Hawks in Game 1 of the first round. If anything, the surprise this season wasn’t about the Knicks underwhelming — they finished around their projected win total — but rather the Celtics and Pistons busting through ceilings.
Green dismissed the Pistons and picked the Celtics over New York because of chemistry differences.
“Originally at the beginning of the year, I had the Knicks,” he said. “The Knicks probably had the highest expectation, the most pressure on them. They made it to the Eastern Conference finals last year. Indiana dropped out with injuries. Boston had dropped down with injuries but came back, and they’ve been playing well even without Jayson Tatum for most of the year.
“Detroit is good. They’re just young and inexperienced. That’s why I couldn’t give the edge to Detroit. Boston and New York have to face each other in that second round at some point. The winner of that matchup is the one that’s going to get to the Finals. Right now, I’m giving the edge to Boston, even though the Knicks have played well against Boston.”
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