Knicks’ Mike Brown returns to scene of his unceremonious firing

SACRAMENTO — Mike Brown didn’t stew at home after getting fired by the Kings. He took a trip.

Lots of them, actually.

“When it happened, you process it real quickly and then literally my wife and I, we went to Australia for UFC 313,” Brown said. “We went to hang out in Brooklyn, we hung out in Puerto Vallarta [in Mexico], and then we went to St. Barts.

“I probably shouldn’t say all that. … But in this life, you’ve gotta keep moving forward. You can really beat yourself up if you try to guess what should have happened, why it happened, all that stuff. Life is short.”

Brown has experience moving on after getting fired four times as an NBA coach, although the last dismissal from Sacramento felt the most abrupt or unwarranted.

And it was probably even easier to reflect positively Tuesday, with Brown standing after practice at his old home Golden 1 Center on the eve of his first game against the Kings since getting canned just a year ago.

After all, Brown recovered quickly and fortuitously.

He’s guiding a championship hopeful with the Knicks (25-14), who are on pace for a third straight season of 50 wins or more.

He’s no longer coaching the Kings (10-30), who are playing better lately with a current two-game winning streak but remain a huge disappointment since Brown left.

The coach came out of the ordeal looking better.

The Kings, meanwhile, look much worse with Doug Christie steering the ship.

There weren’t regrets upon reflection Tuesday — only a hope the roster was healthier.

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“Our first year we won 48 [games], and this is my personal two cents: if Kevin [Huerter] doesn’t get hurt [with] two months to go and Malik [Monk] doesn’t get hurt [with] a month to go, we probably win 50 that second year and then we’re in the playoffs,” Brown said. “So first year we played injury free, second year we got hit with the injury bug especially late, a starter and our sixth man. If there’s anything I regret, I know I had no control over that, and neither did the guys, but I wish we were injury free at least at the end of the season to give ourselves a better chance.”

Still, Brown is fortunate the Kings didn’t crater his future as an NBA coach.

There were rumors of discord and his intense practices wearing on players. Nobody explained the decision well, and star point guard De’Aaron Fox quickly diffused rumors that he didn’t get along with the coach.

There were also whispers of a bad connection with the new star — DeMar DeRozan — but that was also denied.

In the end, it was probably just a famously impulsive and fumbling owner — Vivek Ranadivé — making a rash decision with poor timing.

Brown, like David Fizdale in New York five years prior, went through practice and conducted media interviews on the same day he was fired over the phone.

The big difference was Fizdale had a terrible record as a head coach. Brown rescued the Kings from laughingstock status, earning coach of the year in 2022.

“I don’t know the ins and outs of how that transpired and all those kind of things. The stuff that was always reported wasn’t the most respectful stuff,” Josh Hart said Tuesday. “I think he’s someone who’s a great human being, first and foremost, and garners respect for all of his peers and everyone that looks up to him.

“I’m sure he could talk a little bit more about the way that it happened, but I think the way that it happened was reported some kind of unfair and unprofessional.”

Regardless of why it ended in Sacramento, there was no guarantee of another chance for Brown.

The Knicks only hired him after failing to entice multiple teams to allow them to interview coaches under contract, and the process left the impression Brown was more of a fallback than a target.

It’s not often a coach gets a fourth crack at the front of the bench.

But Brown is back in Sacramento and in a much better place than the current version of the Kings, which should compel the fans Wednesday to show appreciation.

“Yeah it’s a little emotional,” Brown said. “But at the end of the day, the fans, if they cheer me or hug me when they see me during the game, after the game, trust me, they wanna kick my ass, and the Knicks ass, and we wanna do the same.”

Hart, who was traded three times, also understands.

“We always say it’s another game,” he said, “but there’s always a little bit more behind it.”