![\"Josh](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-2247566825-scaled-e1763632369825.jpg\")
<\/p>\nDALLAS \u2014 New York head coach Mike Brown is playing the long game, but it\u2019s paying off now.<\/p>\n
Tune into a tightly-contested Knicks game and you might see them closing with Josh Hart. Maybe you\u2019ll see Landry Shamet out there. Or Miles McBride even. Jordan Clarkson might sneak his way onto the floor, as well. Two of these names could be out there together with the game on the line.<\/p>\n
New York, when healthy, can confidently go nine deep. Look no further than Wednesday night\u2019s 113-111 win over the Mavericks. It was Hart who won nearly every 50-50 ball down the stretch. It was Shamet whose two late 3s and on-ball defense allowed New York to secure its first road win of the season. That might not have happened if Miles McBride didn\u2019t hit 3 after 3 when Jalen Brunson, who returned from an ankle injury and scored 28 points, needed a breather. Clarkson, aside from Brunson, was one of only three Knicks who could put the ball in the basket in the first half.<\/p>\n
Brown is allowing his players to build confidence in the middle of November. In turn, he\u2019s learning who he can trust, all with the hopes it\u2019ll pay off in April and beyond.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so early in the season, the reality of it is that I don\u2019t want to gas my guys this early in the season,\u201d Brown said. \u201cIf the minutes can be respectable across the board, especially at this time of the year, then we can increase the minutes come playoff time or late in the season.\u00a0Getting these guys reps in case (*knocks on wood*) someone gets hurt or in case we have to throw someone in the game. There is a comfort level that they have, and not only that they have, but I have, the staff has and everybody else has with someone new on the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Knicks (9-5) have 10 players who have played in at least eight games this season (Mitchell Robinson started the year on a \u201cload management\u201d plan and isn\u2019t playing in back-to-back games) and average a minimum of 10 minutes per game. Last season, of players who played in at least 57 percent of the Knicks\u2019 games, nine averaged 10-or-more minutes. That\u2019s a subtle difference, of course, but the optics go beyond that.<\/p>\n
A year ago, when New York was in crunch time, we all knew who would be on the floor. It was Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Hart. It wasn\u2019t a secret. This season, it\u2019s a little less predictable. Brown isn\u2019t afraid to ride the hot hand. He\u2019s also not afraid to sit the cold one, even if that\u2019s a starter. Brown has dared to experiment in November so he can have a better understanding of who he can trust come the spring.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are building blocks and stuff we have to work on now,\u201d said Brunson, who missed New York\u2019s previous two games. \u201cThe quicker we get better at it, the better it\u2019ll be for us in the long run. We have to continue to stay focused in these situations and have fun with them. It\u2019s not pressure. This is stuff we work on, stuff we do. Let\u2019s go out and do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
What a last seven days for Shamet, huh? The veteran guard who has spent the last two seasons on a non-guaranteed deal has been the bench player Brown taps when a starting wing like Anunoby, who has missed the Knicks\u2019 previous two games, is out. Shamet had a career-high 36 points off the bench last Friday. On Wednesday, starting his second game in a row, he was arguably the Knicks\u2019 best on-ball defender and hit two big shots late to help them shimmy out of what would have been their worst loss of the season.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s Hart, who played the second most minutes in the entire NBA last season. He\u2019s now coming off the bench and finds himself playing anywhere from 27-to-30 minutes on most night. He still does what he does, which is bring a different rhythm to a game, win in the margins and play connector.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Josh Hart\u2019s minutes are down this season as he comes off the bench but he\u2019s still been a major contributor. (Stacy Revere \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
McBride has been one of the team\u2019s best 3-point shooters this seasons. He\u2019s got a few big shots to his name. The same goes for Clarkson, who is on a veteran-minimum deal. Guerschon Yabusele, who the Knicks signed with their midlevel exception this summer, is still finding his way, but if you just flip his salary with Clarkson\u2019s in your head then you feel better about how his start of the season has gone.<\/p>\n
New York is, more often than not, getting contributions from essentially everyone it throws out on the floor. The bench players continuously fit in seamlessly with the starters when the two are blended together.<\/p>\n
The Knicks have a lot of work to do to be NBA title contenders, but the production from the bench \u2014 which ranked 30th in points and minutes a season ago but is currently sitting at 18th in points and 20th in minutes \u2014 and the willingness to have some trial and error is a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n
Trust, indeed, goes a long way.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving moments and situations throughout the year \u2026 we\u2019re going to need all of us,\u201d Shamet said. \u201cWhether it\u2019s in a few weeks or now during this stretch when we\u2019re a little banged up, down the line. Having situations where we can have some game reps, that\u2019s invaluable. We appreciate it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS \u2014 New York head coach Mike Brown is playing the long game, but it\u2019s paying off now.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,1104,56],"class_list":["post-47048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-ny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}