Knicks haven't played with the expected pace that came with Mike Brown's reputation

There are days like Wednesday when everything goes exactly as it was imagined.

The offense flowed. The defense was stifling. The spacing appeared perfect. Everything worked, and the Knicks beat the Nets by 54 points, the largest margin of victory in franchise history.

When Mike Brown took over as coach of the Knicks, he knew there would be nights like this. And he knew there would be nights like Monday, when the Knicks were embarrassed by the Mavericks. But what he knew for sure was that it was going to take time.

“I coach the way I coach,” Brown said before the Knicks had even played a preseason game. “So that’s what I’m going to do. I had success or have been a part of success in the past. We think with a veteran group they can adapt relatively easy. It’s going to take some time. But no matter what you do, whenever you start something new, it’s going to take some time. We’re going to embrace that, try not to skip any steps during the process . . .

“We’re going to play fast, not just in the fullcourt, but halfcourt, too. The floor is going to be spaced. Now if you add on top of that how we like to touch the paint to generate threes, we feel we have guys that are more than capable of doing that.”

It seemed easy in theory. The Knicks had been successful for years under Tom Thibodeau, but there were critics. They were not adapting to the modern game. He played his players too many minutes. He didn’t develop the bench. But whatever the critics thought, doing it his way allowed the Knicks to advance deeper into the playoffs than they had in a quarter-century.

That was the hard part for Brown. Interview for the job, talk about your past, describe the changes you’ll make. And then the reality is a lot harder — same as most jobs.

Brown has implemented some changes and has backed off on some, too. And now, after 44 games — just past the halfway mark — with a 26-18 record and an NBA Cup title, it’s still a work in progress.

Back when he made his plans, Brown had Josh Hart coming off the bench, Karl-Anthony Towns shifting roles and an urgency to push the pace. But Hart is back in the starting lineup, Towns is almost exclusively back to his familiar role at center and the pace is actually very similar to that of the team he inherited.

The Knicks were 26th in pace last season and have improved slightly to 24th this season. The experiences that Brown brought from his long tenure as an assistant coach on Golden State’s championship teams and his own Sacramento squad have not taken hold the way he might have planned.

The NBA tracks passes per game and the Knicks have moved from 281.1 last season to 291.4, a baby step when you consider Golden State is tops in the NBA at 339.0.

Nearly four months after Brown first spoke of those plans, he still is hopeful. Not everything has worked, but the team is shooting five more three-point field goals per game than last season, up from 27th in the league to eighth.

“We want to play with pace offensively,” he said. “We want to get the ball reversed. We want to make quick decisions on touching the paint and creating space. Defensively, we want a lot of communication. We want to be physical without fouling. We want to have ball pressure and then we want to finish the play. We want to box out for a rebound so we can get out and go.”

“I know we want to play fast,” Mikal Bridges said earlier this month. “I think it’s trying to find that fine-tune, because last year we got comfortable with going far and we got comfortable with last year’s system. So as the players, we’ve got to get out of that comfort zone a little bit. But I also think, even the way we’re playing, we can play 10 times better. It’s early . . . We’re still learning and growing.

“Hearing a lot of things about [Brown] in Sacramento, I know about him holding guys accountable. [That] was probably the biggest thing I heard about him, and you saw that from the summer. I think that’s the biggest thing I see and care about, but him also adjusting . . . Sometimes it might look good on paper, the things they draw up, but once you kind of get to know the players and get to know the team, you can feel what we can use or not use.”

And that is the reality for Brown. He inherited a team that was built to Thibodeau’s style, and they were really successful. Jalen Brunson is one of the top offensive talents in the NBA, but he is not an athletic marvel. Towns, similarly, has unique offensive skills but is not built on flying up the court and racing to the corners. Brown has adjusted his plan, putting those two in the places in which they were previously successful.

When it all clicked Wednesday night, Brown had hope.

“Just seeing us play how we were capable of playing,” he said. “Again, I don’t know what the score will be every night. But the things that we did out on the floor, talked about, drilled and watched film on, our guys are more than capable of. But seeing them put it together for 48 minutes was a lot of fun.”

By Steve Popper

steve.popper@newsday.com@StevePopper

Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.