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Popovich: Brown relishes challenge

BY GREG LOGAN
STAFF CORRESPONDENT

February 28, 2006

SAN ANTONIO -- Oh to be a fly on the wall as San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich commiserated with his old buddy Larry Brown over a few glasses of terrific 2001 pinot noir from Oregon during the dinner they shared at a local steakhouse Sunday night.

Last June, when Brown was coaching Detroit, they played each other for the NBA title, but after last night's 121-93 loss to the Spurs, Brown has been on the losing end of 20 of his past 22 games with the Knicks.

"Larry is Larry," Popovich said when asked to describe the mood of the evening. "You can just imagine. He's in the middle of a tough situation, and he's well aware of that. But personally, I think he relishes it. He wants to fix it. That's what makes him tick."

Brown promised to be relentless in getting his defense-first message across to the Knicks, but while it has worked everywhere else he's coached, he seems to have met his match in the Knicks' collection of high-priced players, most of whom make their money as scorers.

"I can't imagine him meeting his match, to be honest with you," Popovich said. "But maybe some situations take longer than others because of circumstances. As time goes by, he'll figure out how to handle the circumstances he finds himself in and then move on from there."

Rose: Coaches similar

Former Spur Malik Rose, who was traded to the Knicks a year ago, said the transition has been smooth because Brown and Popovich coach the same way, except his former coach uses more expletives. Asked why the Knicks aren't getting results similar to the Spurs, Rose shrugged and said, "Sometimes, as players, we don't listen like Pop's players, but they preach the same things." . . . Rose received a huge ovation at SBC Center during a preseason appearance in October and hoped for a similar reception last night. He got it.

[MavKikiNYC]

Originally Posted by Five-ofan

So kiki, you really think the knicks are better off being the worst team in the nba than they would be running and trying to get 40 or so wins? Granted this year they arent going anywhere but that team should be able to run.

In the long run, yes. And it wouldn't necessarily have to be so FAR in the long run, if Thomas hadn't foolishly traded their top draft choices away--those are going to be high lottery picks.

Running-and-gunning, they would top out at around .500, but would never stand a chance at being better than that or at being a serious contender. They simply don't have the manpower for it. Not even in the East.

People really overrate the talent level on the Knicks. The have a performer or two (Marbury, Francis) with flashy skills, but no real solid ball players. They have a retread (J.Rose) who used to ball decently; they have a tall fat kid with a bum ticker (Curry) in whom people WANT to see potential; they have an injured young player with a couple of good seasons under his belt (Q. Rich) who seems to put out effort, but can't produce results; they have a role player (M.Rose) who's been on a winner, but lacks physical talent; they have a waste of DNA (Jerome James); and they have 3 rookies who show some potential, but ain't done nothin' yet.

That's it. Brown hasn't been able to commit to playing and developing the young players in any kind of coherent way, because he has so much flawed dreck around them.

Personally, I could live with a strip-down and rebuild. I wouldn't mind seeing them accumulate losses, if it looked like they might stand to benefit from them. And if it looked like they were bringing along talent for the future.

But Thomas is just going further and further down the toilet--bringing in older and older players, with bigger and bigger flaws, and bigger and longer contracts. I'm not convinced that they've even hit bottom yet. He needs to get rid of almost all of the players he's already acquired, not bring in more like them.

But yeah...to answer your question, I think they'd do better to lose while learning how to play defense, learning how to play within a system, learning discipline, learning the game, than trying to pick up a couple of meaningless wins here and there.

[dirno2000]

Flawed dreck or not, there's no reason Channing Frye shouldn't be getting 35 minutes a night on a team that bad. I doubt that Nate will ever start for a good team and I haven't seen enough of Lee to make a judgement one way or another but Frye has been as impressive as any rookie north of Chris Paul.

[Five-ofan]

Oh kiki i totally agree, if they still had draft picks, play this way and get yourself good picks while developing good habits for your youngsters BUT they dont so they might as well try to win. The last 2 gms have screwed the pooch BUT you still gotta work with what you have if you are the coach and other than the fact that their 4 best players are shoot first pgs they have talent. I know that is sad. How do you end up with your 4 best players playing the same position? And none of them doing it correctly. BTW you guys should read bill simmons atrocious GMs summit. Pretty funny.