Knicks not content with simply being close to a spot in the NBA Finals

CLEVELAND — The New York Knicks came into Game 3 of the 2026 Eastern Conference finals with clear marching orders.

“I mean, we’ve got to play with a sense of desperation,” Knicks guard Miles McBride said after New York’s Game 2 victory. “We’re going to their crib. We did what we were supposed to do here, but we have to be desperate.”

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“We gotta execute at the high level of desperation that we had in Philly and Atlanta,” All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns said at the Knicks’ Saturday shootaround.

“We just gotta keep playing desperate,” swingman Mikal Bridges said at shootaround. “I know it’s easier for the team that’s down 0-2 to play more desperate, but that can’t be us […] to us, it’s 0-0.”

OK, so: play desperate. To Knicks head coach Mike Brown, that means:

Persistent focus and attention to detail, irrespective of score and personnel in the game;

A non-negotiable level of energy, effort and physicality (“Sometimes you might screw up a rotation or an assignment or something like that, but the energy and the effort — along with the physicality, on both ends of the floor — has to always be there”);

Loud, continuous, constant communication — not only on the defensive end of the floor, but also even if you’re sitting on the bench. (And you probably shouldn’t be sitting, because, y’know: energy and effort.)

“If you do those things, no matter what the score is, to me, that’s playing desperate,” Brown said before Game 3. “That’s having an appropriate fear of your opponent.”

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While Brown leaned on the wisdom of Pop in emphasizing vigilance to a team that hadn’t lost in a month, Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson’s message to his team — a squad that overcame a 2-0 deficit in the second round and had survived consecutive Game 7s — was a bit more measured, and a little less … paranoid.

“I think that the maturity part, the even-keeledness of our team, the composure we have, the experience we have allows us to approach this in a good way,” Atkinson said before Game 3. “Not desperate — none of those words, those extreme words. We…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/knicks-not-content-with-simply-being-close-to-a-spot-in-the-nba-finals-062429571.html

Author : Dan Devine

Publish date : 2026-05-24 06:24:00

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