The Knicks losing streak brings a lot of early adversity to Mike Brown’s crew

CHICAGO – Mike Brown says he wants to see how the Knicks respond to adversity.

He is already getting a chance, probably sooner than the coach had hoped.

In the previous two seasons under coach Tom Thibodeau, the Knicks only suffered a three-game losing streak after Christmas.

With higher expectations and an experienced roster, Brown is on a three-game skid against Halloween. If the Knicks (2-3) lose to the Bulls (5-0) on Sunday at MSG, they will questionably have four straight losses for the first time since the 2023-2024 season.

Do you want adversity, coach? You got it.

“This is a great test for us,” Brown said. “It’s still early days, but it’s a great test for us and I’m curious to see what kind of resilience we have as a group.”

Given the Knicks’ uninspiring play on the road trip, it’s hard to know how they’ll handle Sunday’s rematch against Chicago. The Knicks have clearly been better at home — where they are 2-0 — but the road trip exposed a plethora of problems and led to impassioned pleas from Brown to get things right.

In the loss in Miami, they gave up too many free throws, according to Brown.

In Milwaukee, there were too many transition points.

In Chicago? It was poor one-on-one defending, with Brown revealing players were not following his defensive game plan.

“I’ve got to keep telling them the truth. I’m going to keep coaching them,” Brown said. “I’ll keep trying to put them in the best position to win. But we also have – as I said: [Friday night] comes back to guarding the basketball. We also have to be proud – like I said, (the Bulls’ loss) comes down to guarding the basketball, guarding the basketball with a sense of urgency and physicality without sending them to the free-throw line.

Brown did not mention any specific players in his criticism, but there were certainly candidates:

• Karl-Anthony Towns is uncomfortable in Brown’s fast-paced system, which is more problematic because it was predictable. Towns followed up his dud in Milwaukee by missing three straight open three-pointers to close out the loss in Chicago.
• Despite all the praise for the Knicks’ depth and bench upgrades, the reserves were outplayed in all three losses. Josh Hart is having his worst period as a Knick. Guerschon Yabusele was ineffective, then got injured and was benched in the second half of Friday’s loss. Tyler Kolek didn’t seem ready to take on the role of backup point guard. Jordan Clarkson is shooting 32 percent. New York’s bench has been outscored 131-60 in its last three games.
• Mitchell Robinson’s load management plan makes no sense unless he suffered a setback in the preseason, but no one wants to acknowledge that.
• Mikal Bridges’ ineffectiveness as a defender last season has been reflected in the start of this season. He was cooked in Miami by Norman Powell (29 points), then in Chicago by Josh Giddey (32 points, nine assists). The problem, according to one Western Conference assistant coach, is that Bridges isn’t physical enough to navigate the screens or the grind of those assignments.
• While Brown has hammered defense after losses, the other side of the ball has been a bigger struggle. Heading into Saturday’s games, they were rated 17th in offense and 14th in defense. They also scored just 42.4 percent and ranked 28th in the league.

None of this would be alarming if the Knicks didn’t establish a baseline of Finals-or-bust. And even with these expectations, there is the important context of a small sample size.

But within that small sample size, the Knicks certainly didn’t seem like a team primed to win the conference.

“Going 0-3 on the road trip is something a team of our caliber shouldn’t do,” Towns said.

The road trip started on an ominous note, with their flight to Miami being delayed several hours due to a medical tragedy involving a flight crew member before takeoff. Then they lost three in a row and were crushed by Erik Spoelstra, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Giddey.

Now they’re back at MSG for two weeks and seven games, the longest homestretch of the season. It starts with a rematch against the Bulls that will already test the Knicks’ resilience.