The New York Knicks are almost set to try and become the NBA's first team in nine years to successfully defend a title. After winning the 2026 NBA Championship in June, the team kept the vast majority of their postseason rotation — despite losing backup center Mitchell Robinson — and added Andre Drummond to mitigate their losses. A training camp battle is set to help finalize the end of their bench.
The team also knows their mentality, both on and off the court, has to be right to stay on top. Every time a member of the roster has answered a question about the team's mentality going into next year, directly or not, they've given the right answer. Whether it was at a Yankee game with Dave Sims and Suzyn Waldman, or at media day, the team consistently gave fans reason to believe their infamous "0-0 mentality" is staying with them for the 2026-27 season.
If head coaches are going to get blame whenever things go wrong, then all of this should be a direct credit to the work Mike Brown and his staff have put in — and the system and culture that they've established and built in New York. The decision from governor James Dolan and team president Leon Rose to change coaches last offseason proved wise, with Brown guiding the Knicks through the end of a 53-year championship drought.
Now, New York is going to need to lean on the coach's experience going back-to-back with the Golden State Warriors. It'll make their choice to bring Brown in look even smarter.
Brown's experience with Warriors makes him perfect for NY's repeat bid
In Brown's first year as the head coach of the Knicks, he took largely the same group that made the Eastern Conference Finals the season prior and helped them reach both of the goals that had just escaped them in 2025: making it to the NBA Finals, and leaving that series as league champions.
Especially with the NBA's new rules that disincentivize tanking, basically every team in the league is going to be out to use their upcoming game against these Knicks to send a message.
The team that plays home games at Madison Square Garden is quite familiar with the concept of opponents coming into their building with extra motivation; now, a similar intensity will likely make the road environments they enter even more hostile.
Brown, with his experience as the Warriors' defensive coordinator under Steve Kerr, is just the guy to help them figure it all out.
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