New York Knicks
Face of the Franchise
Knicks Bulletin: ‘He’s a connector. He’s a glue guy’
Source: https://www.postingandtoasting.com/knicks-news/77751/knicks-bulletin-hes-a-connector-hes-a-glue-guy
New York will keep waiting to welcome back their team as the Knicks have three more road games coming up next.
Will they return from the West Coast rodeo with a positive balance? For now, it’s 0-1 entering the Blazers matchup.
Here’s some said of late.
Mike Brown
On Josh Hart’s on-court value:
“He’s a connector. He’s a glue guy. There’s a lot of things that we can do with him on the floor, on both ends of the floor, that he brings to the team.”
On the declining paint touches without Hart in the lineup:
“Our overall paint touches are down and our overall sprays are down. Some of it is we’re not moving the ball like we were, but Josh, again, he’s another ball handler that gets downhill very well. He makes quick decisions, gets downhill, and if you cat-and-mouse, he’s definitely going to finish. If you come to him, he’s a great spray guy. To be missing that, makes it tough when it impacts all of us.”
On diagnosing the team’s struggles without pinning it on one cause:
“You factor in—could it be opponents? Could it be the time of the year? I’m not sure.”
On handling physical opponents:
“Yeah, we told our guys, hey, look, they’re going to be up in you. They’re going to try to be physical with you. That’s the way they play. They’ve done a good job with it. We fell into the way that they played and even got frustrated, picking up a couple of offensive fouls. We have to do a better job with it instead of letting them dictate what’s going on on the floor.”
On the value of limited practice time:
“It helped a lot. When we got together, it wasn’t really practice practice, at least practice how I like it. But any time you can get your group together and review whatever your principles are, whatever your offensive stuff is, whatever your defensive stuff is, and then watching tape on the previous opponent to see where you can get a little better and also where you’re doing things fine. Any time you can do that, it’s good. And it was good for us to do for sure.”
Full Knicks injury report Sunday in Portland:
Josh Hart upgraded QUESTIONABLE (sprained right ankle)
Guerschon Yabusele also upgraded QUESTIONABLE (right quad contusion)
Landry Shamet OUT 24th straight game (right shoulder sprain)
Trey Jemison OUT (GLeague-2way) pic.twitter.com/LJUT1qkMmI
— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) January 10, 2026Jalen Brunson
On physicality:
“They play physical basketball, but so do we. And we need to.”
On secondary playmaking without Josh Hart:
“We need Hart back but I do believe we have secondary playmakers after myself. We have them on our team. And you may think differently but that’s how I feel.”
On the team’s struggles and accountability:
“I’m going to keep it real. We look godawful. And how do I say this? The worst part about it, it’s all correctable stuff. And I think that’s what makes it most frustrating is like we have the ability to correct it. It should have been corrected a long time ago. Obviously, our communication on both sides of the ball. One, physicality on both sides of the ball. I think it’s more mental than anything. Like we have the pieces and we’ve shown that we can be physical on both sides of the ball this season. Like it’s not like we’re like brand-new. We’ve adjusted. We’ve gotten better earlier in the season. We’re obviously taking steps back, but we had the ability to do great things as a team and I think we’ve shown that so far. It’s just a rough patch. It’s not fun. It’s something you don’t want to go through as a team. You don’t want to be in this position, but we got to claw our way out of it somehow. You can’t just sulk and be feeling sorry for ourselves. That’s just going to make us worse.”
Karl-Anthony Towns
On his role, shot volume, and impact on winning:
“I’m going to keep shooting and keep making space for my teammates. I’m gonna keep trying to be as impactful for winning as possible and be the best in the role as possible. Getting my teammates involved and moving the ball and making the defense shift and giving the whole team space to operate my passing gravity. I am trying to do my best in my role and impact the winning. Tonight, it is unfortunate we did not do enough to win. I thought we did a great job to put ourselves in the position to win, so it’s more disappointing.”
On Josh Hart’s absence in a new system:
“I mean, it’s tough when you’re missing a big part of your team in a new system, new offense, new philosophy, scheme.”
Miles McBride
On Josh Hart’s importance to the team:
“He’s the heart and soul of the team from an energy perspective. I bring a lot of energy, we got a lot of guys that do. But he’s been doing it for so long and we’ve all been able to use him as the nucleus.”
"Being a pro's my whole mentality…I'm on Year 3…Ain't no campus you gotta go to, it's24-7…Staying in the gym…with the dudes you see behind me…those my brothers right here I got in Westchester with me"
– Dink Pate, age 19, straight from HS to the G, leads league in 3s pic.twitter.com/LyReJ4h4qH
— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) January 11, 2026
Source: https://www.postingandtoasting.com/knicks-news/77751/knicks-bulletin-hes-a-connector-hes-a-glue-guy
