Mike Brown: Knicks up for title-or-bust expectations after James Dolan’s mandate

Knicks head coach Mike Brown doesn’t think about the ramifications his team will face if they don’t make it to the NBA Finals this season — as owner James Dolan mandated in a rare media appearance on WFAN radio in early January.

But the Knicks know the expectations are real, and Brown, after practice at the team’s Tarrytown training facility, the first practice ahead of New York’s first-round playoff series against the Atlanta Hawks beginning on Saturday, said his team is up to the task.

“I don’t really think about the last part of the question,” Brown said, regarding the potential for widespread changes should the Knicks fall short of the Finals this season. “Everybody in that locker room has a competitive spirit that I like and that I can say is unmatched. I love the group and we’re competing.

“Not just for 53 wins, we’re competing at the end of the day, like everybody else is, to win it [a championship]. For us, we’re concentrating on practice tomorrow, getting ready for Atlanta. But our competitive spirit is there. It’s not anything we take lightly.”

Dolan, on Jan. 5, said the Knicks needed to “evolve beyond the old traditional coaching formulas” as part of his reasoning for dismissing Tom Thibodeau as head coach following the team’s Eastern Conference Finals run:” I won’t say you can’t win a title with Tom Thibodeau; I don’t know that’s true, but if you want to build a long-term, competitive, compete for the [title], you need someone who’s much more of a collaborator,” he said.

He also set clear expectations for the first season under Brown.

“I’d say we want to get to the Finals, and we should win the Finals,” Dolan said. “This is sports; anything can happen. Getting to the Finals, we absolutely have to do. Winning the Finals, we should do.”

Those public comments made by ownership reverberated throughout the Knicks locker room amid a spiral of nine losses in 11 games. Team captain Jalen Brunson reiterated the goal of winning a championship this season after practice on Wednesday but stopped short of saying he embraced the challenge of a title-or-bust mandate.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I feel like it’s — obviously we want to win, which is very important for us, but I think our approach matters and how we attack that every day, attack that goal is really important.

“So I think regardless, it’s important for us to just focus on one day at a time.”

The Knicks’ 53 wins this season marked the most they’ve amassed since the Carmelo Anthony-led 2012-13 season. They are the most first-year wins by any coach in franchise history and two more wins than Thibodeau recorded in his final year as head coach.

The Knicks last made the NBA Finals in the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season.

CONFIDENT SQUAD

Brunson said fans should know he’s very confident in his Knicks team entering the playoffs this season.

What feeds that confidence?

“To be honest, there’s a lot of things that go on that you guys don’t see, a lot of things that we talk about, a lot of things that we do that we don’t even say publicly, and for a reason, because we want to keep everything in-house,” he said. “We want to make sure that the people that are inside this building, inside the locker room, we’re all we’ve got, no matter what.

“And so, like I said, I have the utmost confidence in them.”

Karl-Anthony Towns, too, echoed that belief in his team after practice on Wednesday.

“I’m confident. I step into every playoff run confident in our team because at the end of the day, we’re the ones that are going to need to get the job done, and also, we’re all we need,” he said. “I know everyone in that locker room believes that we have everything we need in that locker room to give ourselves a chance, and we’ve just got to continue to go out there and play at a high level.”

INJURY REPORT

Brown said all Knicks players participated in practice on Wednesday. The full bill of health is a welcome sight given Miles McBride (sports hernia surgery), Mitchell Robinson (left ankle surgery management), Josh Hart (lower back/finger/knee), Landry Shamet (shoulder) and OG Anunoby (hamstring/ankle) have all battled injuries this season.