Mike Brown knows why Knicks championship chemistry hasnt carried over: Climbing a mountain

It can be deadly on a hike.It’s costly for a basketball team.Chemistry must be rebuilt.

No steps can be skipped, regardless of how long a team has played together.“You’re starting all over,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said after practice Sunday.“It’s like climbing a mountain.

We’re climbing a mountain as a team and we conquer the mountain, then you gotta come back down, take some time off, then you gotta climb another mountain.It’s the same thing.

And when you climb that mountain the second time, you’re starting from base camp again.And if you skip steps doing that, you’re going to die.

It’s not that tragic for us.When you’re sitting at 2-4, people equate it to that sometimes, but it’s the same thing, taking each step the right way and embracing it and trying to get a little better.”The Knicks’ continuity from their championship team was supposed to be a major strength for their chances of repeating.

This group clicked about as well as any group has ever clicked during the playoffs last year.Their togetherness and selflessness made them new fans across the country.

An ability to elevate each other on the court made them an incredibly well-functioning machine.But with a 2-4 record through the first six games of the year, the Knicks have resembled a group that, as Brown said, is starting all over again — not one that is picking up where they left off last year.It’s been most glaring on the offensive end, which has been disjointed.

There have been too many turnovers, too much isolation and a lack of playing off one another.It has looked like a group that is relearning each other despite the core knowing each other better than any in the league.That’s the tricky part about chemistry — it needs to be reestablished and reinforced, like a campfire that constantly needs to be tended to.“Yeah, that’s why I think for us, we just gotta continue to grow,” Mikal Bridges said on Sunday.“Last time we played was in June.

I think [w...