The New York Knicks’ rough January hit a breaking point on Monday night, and captain Jalen Brunson wasn’t willing to let it slide.
Following a humiliating home blowout loss to the Dallas Mavericks, Brunson called a players-only meeting in the locker room.
It was sending a clear message that the team’s problems could no longer be pinned on anyone else.
Brunson urged his teammates to stop searching for outside answers and instead take responsibility for their own play, sources told ESPN.
“He said guys we gotta stop looking to the coaching staff for answers, we gotta stop looking elsewhere the answers to what is wrong with us right now are right in this locker room. We gotta look in the mirror,” according to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne.
The meeting came after New York’s 9th loss in 11 games, a stretch that has seen the Knicks fall from one of the league’s hottest starts to one of its most disappointing slides.
After opening the season at 23-9 and winning the NBA Cup in December, the Knicks have since dropped to 25-18, with their offense ranking in the bottom five in the league throughout January.
The frustration boiled over at Madison Square Garden, where fans loudly booed the team as it trailed 75 to 45 at halftime. After the game, Brunson made it clear that the standard hadn’t changed, even if the results had.
“As a team we know what we have to do. It’s either we do it, we care enough to do it, or we don’t,” Brunson told reporters.
That blunt assessment was echoed by Josh Hart, who didn’t sugarcoat the team’s recent performances when speaking after the loss.
“We all need to do some soul-searching,” Hart said. “Right now we’re playing embarrassing basketball. We’re not executing on the offensive end. Defensively, we’ve been abysmal. We’ve been terrible defensively all year.”
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