Only one member of the Knicks’ roster owns an NBA championship ring, even if newcomer Donte DiVincenzo suffered a season-ending ankle injury in the first round of the 2021 playoffs with the Bucks.
DiVincenzo also was a member of the Warriors last season, so he’s been around winning teams for much of his six-year career.
Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said “disappointment would be the perfect word” regarding his team’s laggard defensive play in Wednesday’s blowout loss to the Wizards in the preseason finale, and DiVincenzo noted that the Knicks must pick up their intensity in practice ahead of next Wednesday’s regular-season opener against the Celtics at the Garden.
“I think first you start with the competitive nature,” DiVincenzo said after the Knicks finished the preseason slate with a 1-3 record. “I think we all know that each and every one of us have more of a competitive side to us, and we have to do that each and every night.
“And then you can wrinkle out the Xs and Os and the schemes and the communication, but first and foremost, you’ve just got to compete harder. Everyone knows that we all have it in us, but we can’t pace ourselves. We know that a week from [Wednesday] is opening night. If we’re not ready, we’re gonna get smacked, so I think we have a good week of practice up and coming, and we’ve gotta get after it.”
DiVincenzo also won two NCAA titles alongside Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson at Villanova, with current teammates Josh Hart and Ryan Arcidiacano also key members of the Wildcats’ 2016 championship squad.
The Knicks gave up an average of 125 points in dropping their final three preseason games, including 131 to the Wizards, which DiVincenzo said was “not acceptable.”
The 26-year-old DiVincenzo, who signed a four-year contract worth $46.9 million as a free agent in July, added that he believes the Knicks can make the necessary adjustments and improvements with a week to prepare for the Celtics.
“I think everybody in here has confidence in that,” DiVincenzo said. “We have confidence, me being a new guy I think I have the most confidence in Thibs and this week of practice, everybody’s buying in.
“There’s nobody panic button hitting, going into it. But we know what we need to do, we’re aware of where it can go. So we come back and have a great week of practice, we come together and start the season off strong.”
allowed an average of 125 points per game during the preseason. Charles Wenzelberg
With essentially the same roster returning from last year’s second-round playoff squad — aside from DiVincenzo replacing traded forward Obi Toppin in the rotation — Thibodeau acknowledged the Knicks have to “get the chemistry going” and “get everybody on the same page” over the next several days of practice.
“The intensity that’s required defensively is not a sometimes thing. It’s an all-the-time thing,” Thibodeau said. “And it’s played frenetically. So you can’t pace yourself. You’ve got to understand how hard you have to compete for everything, like guarding the ball, challenging shots, rebounding the ball, being the appropriate help position, reading the ball correctly, moving on the flight of the ball, all those things. There’s no shortcut.
“Xs and Os, I think, come after [playing with intensity]. You can draw up anything you want and we have to take pride in competing. I think once you compete, once you go all out, then it’s easier to say, all right we’re doing this, we’re doing that. We can’t say we’re doing X, Y and Z if we’re not playing as hard as we possibly can.”