KP WON'T CONCEDE
Star says rebuilding Knicks focusing on improving defense
A plan is in place. The bar has been dropped.
Before the Knicks’ preseason loss to the Wizards on Friday, new general manager Scott Perry said he believes fans just want to see the team compete hard, and that “they can live with the results” — if the long-term direction of the franchise is positive.
The same day, coach Jeff Hornacek praised the patience of 76ers coach Brett Brown during the “Process,” in which Philadelphia turned tanking into a multi-year gamble at returning to relevance.
So, while Kristaps Porzingis is expected to be the foundation for a better future, the new face of the team isn’t ready to concede the Knicks have no hope this season.
“I don’t think we’re focused on that,” Porzingis said. “We want to build a good team in the long-term and we don’t look at it like this is the season where we can lose. We want to win every game and we want to have the best season possible and that way we’ll keep going as a team, and in the long-term we’ll be a better team.
“These three years, every year it’s something different — new people, new faces, new players, everybody. It’s just, you come in and you try to adjust as quick as possible, and that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m not blaming that we’re a new team or this and that, we’re just getting to work and we’re trying to make this work as soon as possible.
“One thing, if you want to be a winning team, you’ve got to play good defense and my first two seasons, we weren’t a good defensive team.”
After sitting out Friday as a healthy scratch, Porzingis will play in Sunday’s preseason contest in Brooklyn, as well as Monday’s meeting with the Rockets.
Though Porzingis saw “a lot of [defensive] mistakes” while watching from the sideline, the 22-year-old expects significant improvement among the many new pieces.
“It’s communication, really. We don’t need to be best friends, but it’s just communication on the defensive end and understanding each other and having clear what are the rotations, how we help each other and so on,” Porzingis said. “It’s just being professional and communicating.
“I think our effort is there. We just need to work on doing things the right way and having clear what we’re doing. I think we’re starting to figure each other out and we’re starting to figure those things out and it takes time and it takes practice, but I think the more we practice on those things that we need to work on and the more we’re together as a team — because 95 percent of the guys are new to each other — the better we’ll be.”
There still may be nothing the Knicks can do to prevent missing the playoffs for the fifth straight year. Soon enough, the future may have to be the focus.
Should that be the case, the groundwork to sidestepping further disappointment is already in place.
“We still are trying to win every game we play, but at the end of the game, when the game’s over, we can’t get discouraged if we don’t win,” Hornacek said Saturday. “It is [about] us doing the right things.”