The banner went up Tuesday night. Jalen Brunson says the answer the Knicks care about won’t come for a couple of weeks.
The Knicks captain said the question hanging over the defending champions isn’t whether they can celebrate, but whether a title left them full.
“We’ve done it, but are we still hungry?” Brunson said after practice Monday. “…Or are we just content?”
Brunson said that question will be answered within the first couple of weeks of the season, and that however the Knicks answer it, they’ll attack it and try to get better every day after that.
The first of those weeks starts at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks received their championship rings and raised the franchise’s first title banner since 1973 before Tuesday’s 7 p.m. opener against the Philadelphia 76ers, who face New York twice in the Knicks’ first six games.
Brunson doesn’t see the title as a finish line. He said every season brings something new to chase.
“I think every year, it’s a new year to kind of attack something,” he said.
The banner, Brunson said, is proof of how the Knicks got there, not a reason to stop.
“No matter what happens throughout the season, if you continue to chip away and continue to get better and have that mindset, things can happen for you,” he said. “I mean, every year is a long roller coaster.”
The Knicks get to start this ride with most of the same riders. While teams across the East reshuffled their rosters this summer, New York kept its championship core largely intact, and Brunson called that continuity “very valuable.”
“It’s something that obviously people wanted,” he said, “and for us to come back, I think it’s good to have our chemistry continue to grow.”
That chemistry was tested right away. The 76ers team waiting Tuesday is not the one the Knicks swept, 4-0, in the second round, a series New York closed out in Philadelphia in May. Philadelphia traded for Jaylen Brown from Boston in July and signed LeBron James in free agency, pairing them with Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and V.J. Edgecombe. Brown averaged a career-high 28.7 points last season.
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Brunson said Philadelphia’s overhaul means a different scouting report than the one the Knicks used in May, because the personnel the Knicks have to account for has changed, too.
“They’ve got a lot of pieces, so it’s not the same team,” he said. “So definitely scouting is different.”
The 76ers aren’t the only ones. Brunson said “a lot of teams in the East aren’t the same,” and that the Knicks can’t expect to win the same way twice.
“We’re never going to do the same thing over and over again, because teams are trying to get better, and so are you,” he said.
That’s why the Knicks’ continuity cuts both ways. A familiar group should need less time to find its rhythm than rosters still learning one another. It also means the Knicks won’t have the excuse of a new group if the start is slow, and Brunson has already set the timeline for finding out.
Before any of that, Tuesday belongs to the people in the seats.
Brunson said sharing the night with Knicks fans will be special, and he made clear who he believes earned it.
“They deserve it,” Brunson said. “This is the something that’s been brewing for a long time.”
It’s been brewing for 53 years. The Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs in five games in June to end the drought. Brunson scored 45 points in the 94-90 clincher. Now Brunson, the reigning Finals MVP, said he takes “a lot of pride” in getting to share the ceremony with his teammates and the fans. The players, he noted, “shared a lot already this summer.”
“Definitely a night to remember,” he said, “and just happy we get to experience it.”
Then the clock on his question officially starts ticking. The Knicks and 76ers meet again Oct. 30 in Philadelphia, inside that couple-week window Brunson set for himself.