New coach Mike Brown to 'embrace' Knicks' high expectations - ESPN

NEW YORK — In his introductory news conference, new Knicks coach Mike Brown said he was making a point to take his fiancée to a handful of the city's restaurants upon getting the job.

That was necessary, he said, because there almost certainly won't be a chance to do it once the fall season rolls around.

«There's a lot of work to do,» said Brown, who was sporting a navy blue suit and wearing a Knicks pin in his jacket's lapel. «But I'm looking forward to getting started.»

Brown, officially hired Monday as the 32nd coach in the team's history, inherits some big shoes, relatively speaking. He takes over for coach Tom Thibodeau — whom Brown repeatedly called a friend — after the former Knicks head man was let go following the team's deepest playoff run in 25 years. New York, which has made the playoffs in four of the past five years, is coming off back-to-back 50-win years for the first time since the mid-1990s.

Brown, 55, was careful to not critique his predecessor. He avoided divulging any particulars — be it the starting lineup's struggles in the second half of the season, or defensive strategies — about how he might alter the Knicks' playing style. The closest he came to anything definitive was saying he'd mesh his offensive and defensive philosophies to make sure they fit the club's talented personnel. Everything else will come into greater focus once he fills out his coaching staff in the coming weeks and has more conversations with his players, he said.

He addressed the notion of expectations head-on, though.

Asked what it meant to take over a club that just moved on from its coach after falling just two wins shy of the NBA Finals, Brown suggested that it didn't phase him. «Nobody has any bigger expectations than I