NEW YORK (AP) — Mike Brown had a welcome to Madison Square Garden moment Wednesday night, courtesy of a fan dressed in an orange-and-blue suit.
“Spike Lee came over and gave me a hug before the game,” Brown said. “I’m like, ‘Spike, do you know who I am?’”
Brown is the guy the New York Knicks are counting on to take them across the finish line after Tom Thibodeau got them all the way there. So of course Lee, one of the Knicks’ most famous fans, and just about everyone else in the building knew the coach.
And they had to be happy with what they saw after the Knicks opened the season with a 119-111 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“Good first win knowing that we’ve got a lot of room to grow,” Brown said.
The Knicks reached the Eastern Conference finals last season for the first time since 2000, then made a surprising coaching change when they fired Thibodeau, who led them to the postseason in four of his five seasons.
Brown was hired to take over a team that is one of the favorites to win the conference — and make a veteran squad with most of the same players look different. The Knicks sure did in the first half when Brown used 11 players, a large rotation that was rarely seen under Thibodeau.
“I truly believe this team is a deep team,” said Brown, who like Thibodeau is a two-time NBA Coach of the Year. He said his mother and sister traveled from Texas to attend his first home game in New York.
“It’s my job to keep trying to find combinations out on the floor that work, and just like they’ve got a lot of room to grow, I’ve got a lot of room to grow, too, because I’m still learning. And the neat part about it is, there are a lot of different ways I can go with it and if I can learn on the fly, because we have guys that can play.”
Brown will have to wait to unveil his preferred starting lineup, because both Mitchell Robinson (left ankle injury management) and Josh Hart (lower back spasms) were sidelined. One of them figures to be a starter when available.
Instead, Brown went with Ariel Hukporti, a seldom-used center last season, as a starter. And he seemed willing to try numerous units, at one point sending out a lineup where no player was taller than 6-foot-7 OG Anunoby.
Another injury concern: All-Star forward Karl-Anthony Towns said after the game that he played through a grade 2 quad strain.
Brown wants the Knicks playing faster than last season, when they ranked near the bottom of the league in pace, and he felt they did well while building a 17-point lead in the first half. He said they didn’t keep the pressure up enough in the second half, when the Cavaliers rallied to take the lead, but the Knicks recovered early in the fourth quarter.
There’s plenty of work for Brown to do, including figuring out who from Wednesday’s expanded rotation stays when Hart and Robinson are available. But there’s reason to think the Knicks can live up to the lofty expectations they face under him.
“We have a long way to go,” All-Star Jalen Brunson said. “We have a lot to learn, a lot to get better at, a lot of details to pay attention to, and let’s just say I’m happy it’s Game 1.”
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