Knicks’ flat start already bringing load of adversity

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

He’ll get a chance already, probably earlier than the coach hoped.

In the previous two seasons under coach Tom Thibodeau, the Knicks didn’t absorb a three-game losing streak until after Christmas.

With higher expectations and a veteran roster, Brown has a three-game skid by Halloween. If the Knicks (2-3) fall Sunday at MSG against the Bulls (5-0), they’ll dubiously own four straight losses for the first time since the 2023-24 campaign.

You want adversity, coach? You got it.

“This is a great test for us,” Brown said. “It’s early, but it’s a great test for us and I’m looking to see what type of resiliency we have as a group.”

Given the Knicks’ uninspiring play on the road trip, it’s hard to know how they’ll deal with Sunday’s rematch versus Chicago. The Knicks have obviously been better at home — where they’re 2-0 — but the road trip exposed a glut of issues and prompted passionate pleas from Brown to get it right.

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

In Milwaukee, it was too many transition points.

In Chicago? It was poor one-on-one defending, with Brown revealing that players didn’t follow his defensive game plan.

“Got to keep telling them the truth. I’m going to keep coaching them,” Brown said. “I’m going to keep trying to keep putting them in the best position to win. But we also — like I said, [Friday night] comes back to guarding the basketball. We also have to take pride — like I said, (the Bulls loss) comes back to guarding the basketball, guard the basketball with a sense of urgency and physicality without sending them to the free-throw line.”

Brown hasn’t called out specific players with his critiques, but there were certainly candidates:

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• Karl-Anthony Towns looks uncomfortable in Brown’s fast-paced system, and that’s more problematic because it was predictable. Towns followed up his dud in Milwaukee by missing three straight open 3-pointers to close the defeat in Chicago.
• Despite all the lauding of the Knicks’ depth and bench upgrades, the reserves were outplayed in all three losses. Josh Hart is enduring his worst stretch as a Knick. Guerschon Yabusele was ineffective, then injured, then benched in the second half of Friday’s loss. Tyler Kolek didn’t look ready to assume the role of backup point guard. Jordan Clarkson is shooting 32 percent. New York’s bench was outscored in the last three games, 131-60.
• Mitchell Robinson’s load management plan makes no sense unless he suffered a setback in preseason, but nobody wants to acknowledge it.
• Mikal Bridges’ ineffectiveness as the point-of-attack defender from last season has carried over to the start of this one. He was cooked in Miami by Norman Powell (29 points), then in Chicago by Josh Giddey (32 points, nine assists). The problem, according to a Western Conference assistant coach, is Bridges isn’t physical enough to navigate the screens or the grind of those assignments.
• Although Brown has harped on the 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, 14th in defense. They were also shooting just 42.4 percent, 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 those expectations, there’s the important context of a tiny sample size.

But within that small sample, the Knicks certainly didn’t look like a team ready to win the conference.

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

The road trip started ominously, with their flight to Miami delayed several hours because of a medical tragedy involving a member of the flight crew before takeoff. Then they lost three straight, getting flattened 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’ resiliency.