00:00Pretty good effort from our team, the great part about it is, you know, we've got a lot of room to grow, and that's where it's exciting.
00:11You've got to give political credit.
00:13We took a double-digit beat going into halftime, and they came out and they hit us in the mouth in the second half.
00:20We gave up 15 fast break points in that third quarter, but our guys, I thought, responded the right way.
00:25I thought they did a better job as the game went along, especially in that fourth quarter.
00:33One of the things that we talked about was last year, we thought, you know, watching film from last year, Cleveland did a nice job of scoring in the paint.
00:46They averaged right around 58 points a game in the paint against us last year, and our guys did a great job.
00:52You know, they shifted the right way.
00:56They got the shoes the right way, which resulted in Cleveland scoring 30 points in the paint tonight, and I thought that was huge for us.
01:07At the end of the day, we always talk about, hey, try to win the possession game.
01:11Try to win the possession game.
01:12Try to win the possession game.
01:14For us, that's about free throw attempts plus offensive rebounds minus turnovers, and our guys did.
01:20They won the possession game against good teams.
01:23We have to do that because the ball is not going to always go in.
01:26We've got to rely on our defense, and we've got to win the possession game.
01:30I thought they did a great job with that tonight.
01:32We've got a lot of great performances from a lot of different people.
01:36I mean, OG was a monster.
01:3914 rebounds, 24 points on 9-17, but he was our defensive player of the game.
01:46I think he had six or seven deflections.
01:48He guarded a lot of different people, so we saw a lot of different types of players tonight.
01:55He did a heck of a job, but he had six or seven deflections.
01:59I think he came up with two 50-50 balls, and so just a heck of a job, especially defensively and rebounding-wise from OG.
02:08Same with Cat, 19-11.
02:12We needed every single one of those rebounds that those guys got.
02:16And then you talk about a punch off the bench.
02:19We had a lot of good performances from guys off the bench, but obviously Deuce was good for us, not only defensively, but offensively too.
02:28So, good first win, knowing that we've got a lot of room to grow.
02:34Coach, you played 11 guys deep tonight.
02:38What do you learn from some of the combinations?
02:40You had Tyler got some good minutes to start the second quarter.
02:43You had a stretch there where you had Clarkson.
02:46You had OG playing the big and a fun small round.
02:49So, what do you see in your combination?
02:52You know, I said this before.
02:54I truly believe this team is a big team, and you're in giving Leon Rose and his group a lot of credit for it.
03:01But, you know, it's my job to keep trying to find combinations out on the floor that work.
03:07And just like they got a lot of room to grow, I got a lot of room to grow too because I'm still learning them.
03:14And, you know, the neat part about it is there are a lot of different ways I go with it.
03:21And I can learn on the fly because we have guys that can play.
03:26And, you know, I like to play a lot of guys.
03:28I don't know if I'll play 11 guys every night, but we like to play, you know, as many as we can.
03:34And we want everybody to be ready in case their number's calling any time.
03:39Mike, you talked a lot throughout the preseason about the process of generating your guys' looks.
03:44And I felt like tonight you guys generated a lot of it, just some of them didn't fall.
03:47How encouraging was it, though, that even when shots weren't falling throughout the game,
03:51that your guys kind of stuck with it, you didn't let it be in the defense or any other aspects of it?
03:55It was huge because, you know, when shots don't fall or you get a little staggered,
04:00which is what happened to us at certain times, we kind of took our foot off the gas.
04:05We want to play fast all the time.
04:07Like, just put pressure on them, pressure on them, pressure on them.
04:09You know, we took our foot off the gas, started walking the ball up, started walking into our actions
04:15and allowed Cleveland to sit in the passing lanes and zone up and do some other things.
04:20And so for us, you know, once we got over that hurdle, we realized, hey, we got to keep playing,
04:27trying to play in the way we play.
04:29We were good.
04:30We had 21 sprays.
04:32We want to get to at least 20 a game where, you know, we touch that paint.
04:36Because any time you touch paint, good teams, they have to do this.
04:40They got to protect the paint.
04:41But now those wide-open shots happen, and I think we can even generate more.
04:45I think we can generate 25 to 27 a game because we have that many players, in my opinion,
04:52that are capable of shooting the ball, snap driving and touching the paint,
04:56and moving it on when they need to off of two feet.
04:59What was this first experience like for you at the Garden?
05:02When are your first game here at the Knicks coach?
05:04You know, it's exciting.
05:06And, again, I go back to this place is iconic.
05:09And, you know, just to know that, you know, this is our whole court every night.
05:17Man, it blows my mind.
05:19You know, Spike Lee came over and gave me a hug before he played.
05:22Spike, you know who I am?
05:25Coach, you had the biggest smile, your mom or your sister tonight, since they won't hit?
05:29But probably my sister, and I love my mom to death, but she was probably talking to her neighbor.
05:38So she kind of wasn't smiling.
05:39She was just having a good conversation.
05:42Mike, I want to ask you separately about Colec and then about hub porting.
05:48Just two guys who had increased roles tonight.
05:52What did you see from them?
05:53What do you kind of think about them moving forward?
05:56You know, I thought both guys came in and tried to do what they're capable of doing.
06:00You know, we don't need anybody to come in and play hero ball or anything like that.
06:05Play your strengths.
06:06And both those guys, they could do some things out on the floor.
06:09Obviously, for Ariel, he's a great runner.
06:13He's got great feet.
06:15He can rebound.
06:16You know, he played a pick and roll very well.
06:19Brings energy.
06:20And Tyler, he's savvy with the basketball.
06:24You know, he can get the paint.
06:25They play for himself.
06:26They play for others.
06:29You know, he's got to stick his nose in defensively, which he did tonight.
06:32And, you know, if both guys stay within the framework of what they're capable of doing,
06:38they're going to give us great business throughout the course of the year.
06:41Does Ariel have more to order his, like, short role in than we've kind of seen?
06:46Like, he made that pass to cap for the dump tonight in the short role.
06:51Like, does he have more decision-making ability in those situations than you've seen?
06:54For sure.
06:55Yeah.
06:56Because he's so athletic.
06:58They have to pull.
06:59First of all, if you've got Jalen coming off the pick and roll,
07:02even as you've seen Tyler coming off the pick and roll,
07:05the big's got to put his body in front of the ball.
07:08It's just good basketball.
07:09And if you don't pull that weak guy in, it's going to be a dunk.
07:13And, you know, it was great to see Ariel play off of two feet and make that pass.
07:20He's more than capable, but in the same breath,
07:22he's more than capable of finishing over a small guy if he gets in his way.
07:25And I'm not quite sure if he can do it all the time.
07:29He's got this, like, little runner-floater thing.
07:32And I'm not quite sure, but it's gone in whenever he's shot it,
07:36so I'm going to keep letting it shoot.
07:38Coach Nyquan, what does that say about your team to beat a team as good as the Cavaliers
07:42without two of the key players in Hart and Robinson?
07:44You know, as I said it before, I think the group is deep,
07:50and they have all the attributes that I talked about earlier that are our standard.
07:56You know, and because of that, it doesn't matter who's in front of us,
08:02we're going to have an opportunity to win the game if we play within ourselves
08:05and we do those things, and that's what we did tonight.
08:08Coach Nyquan, a couple more guys.
08:10Coach Nyquan has mic'd out a bit to have Booney gone in the third,
08:13and he finished 0-5 with two turnovers.
08:16Was there an adjustment there?
08:17What did you see that helped slow him down?
08:20You know, he's a great player, and, you know,
08:24we knew he was going to shake loose sooner or later.
08:27We didn't think it was going to be like that.
08:30But we just kept trying to throw a lot of different bodies out.
08:33And, you know, there was really not many different adjustments that we made on him.
08:38We just kept playing our game and tried to throw different bodies at him
08:42so that he had to continue to work against a fresh body or a different type of player.
08:47And then, you know, not one person is going to stop him.
08:51So, as, you know, as the quarter went long and into the fourth quarter,
08:56we were more conscious of being in our shifts to make it, you know,
09:01a little more difficult for you to ever see daylight.
09:03But at the end of the day, you know, he had 31, which, again, he's a phenomenal player.
09:09He's a great player.
09:11But if he's going to get 31, you hope it's on 25, 26, 27 shots.
09:18And, you know, that's what our guys tried to make him do.
09:22He missed some, but, you know, our team defense was pretty good as well.
09:26Mike, the last two options have been made about, I'm sorry,
09:28yeah, a lot has been made, obviously, about the admittance expectations for this team.
09:32Did you – I know it's only opening night.
09:34Did you feel the weight or the magnitude of that during the game on the side one?
09:38The weight of it and the expectations for this team going into the season were pretty big.
09:44Did you feel that, the burden of that?
09:47No, no.
09:48I mean, because our expectations are extremely high.
09:52But we're not going to get ahead of ourselves.
09:55It's – whether we won or lost, it's one game.
09:58And we feel like as the season goes along, we're going to get madder.
10:01We're – we won the game and we had some good moments,
10:05but we don't feel like we're anywhere near what we're capable of.
10:09And that's what makes it exciting.
10:10So, you know, everybody has expectations.
10:14I don't know if their expectations are any higher than everybody in that locker room.
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