![\"Jalen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2270148380-e1775699962231.jpg\")
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Jalen Brunson #11 of the New York Knicks <\/p>\n
It was back at Thanksgiving, about four-and-a-half months ago, that Knicks<\/a> coach Mike Brown made the decision to stop trying to play a double-big lineup with Mitchell Robinson<\/a> at center and Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a> at power forward. Brown brought Josh Hart<\/a> to the starting five, moved Robinson back to the bench where the Knicks could better nudge his injured ankles through the regular season and in doing so, all but set the Knicks\u2019 starting five n stone for the rest of the year.<\/p>\n When healthy, the Knicks go with Jalen Brunson, Hart, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby and Karl-Anthony Towns. Even when it\u2019s been clear that the Knicks could use a change up, even when the team has struggled with a minus-0.8 net rating<\/a>\u00a0 in the first quarter over the past month, 17th in the NBA<\/a>, Brown has stuck with his starters.<\/p>\n Through thick, and more recently, very thin.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s championship or bust mode for that team, I don\u2019t know how Mike Brown has not at least given some other lineups a look with all the trouble they\u2019ve had,\u201d one Eastern Conference assistant coach said. \u201cIt\u2019s a fine line between having the courage of your convictions and just being plain stubborn with it. They\u2019ve had enough problems, it would not have hurt to be creative and see how it looks.\u201d<\/p>\n Time Runs Out on Knicks Lineup Change<\/p>\n Now, though, the Knicks are just days away from the end of the season, and it is hard to imagine Brown trying anything too out-of-the-box at this point. He has choices\u2013Landry Shamet into the starting five, Mitchell Robinson back in the unit, Deuce McBride, Jose Alvarado\u2013but he\u2019s shown no backbone for change.<\/p>\n It\u2019s too late now, though Brown would not concede that when the Knicks beat the Hawks<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t believe in never ever. But right now we\u2019re going to start that five and that\u2019s how I foresee it,\u201d Brown said<\/a>. \u201cIf I feel I need to make a change at any time, I\u2019ll make a change. But I don\u2019t feel that way right now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Debate Literally All the Time\u2019<\/p>\n Brown said he knows the debate on changing the starters has been ongoing among Knicks observers\u2013because it\u2019s been ongoing within the team.<\/p>\n Said Brown: \u201cThere\u2019s debate literally all the time. Obviously there was a debate at the start of the season when we started two bigs [Robinson and Karl-Anthony Towns]. And there was debate almost every day because I was the only one with that [opinion] \u2014 and I was getting hammered at this angle, that angle, every angle. So we talked about it a lot.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s just chatter that you have throughout the course of the year, trying to find ways to improve your team. So I think there\u2019s always going to be chatter about [changing the lineup now]. \u2026 But there\u2019s nothing I\u2019ve felt close to acting on yet.\u201d<\/p>\n Knicks Have $175 Million Starters<\/p>\n And as the sand runs out of the hourglass of this season, the chances of a Knicks change also run out. There are several issues for the Knicks\u2019 starters, a unit that makes around $175 million<\/a> in total. That\u2019s one of them: The starting lineup has too many top-of-the-market No. 1 options and not enough gritty role guys.<\/p>\n The Knicks can be incohesive offensively and lackluster defensively.<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t really lock in on games, not in the first quarter,\u201d one East scout said. \u201cWe tell our guys, we want to hit them in the mouth early. They\u2019re a good team, they usually come back when they get down. But if you hit them hard enough, they fold. I\u2019d like to get some more toughness in that starting group however you can. Maybe it\u2019s too late. But they\u2019re going to need it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tSean Deveney<\/a> is a veteran sports reporter covering the NBA, NFL and MLB for Heavy.com. He has written for Heavy since 2019 and has more than two decades of experience covering the NBA, including 17 years as the lead NBA reporter for the Sporting News. Deveney is the author of 7 nonfiction books, including “Fun City,” “Before Wrigley became Wrigley,” and “Facing Michael Jordan.” More about Sean Deveney<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Knicks\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Jalen Brunson #11 of the New York Knicks It was back at Thanksgiving, about four-and-a-half months ago,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-382598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}