By Ian O’Connor | The Athletic, 2026-06-03 09:45:54
在纽约尼克斯队对迈克·布朗 (Mike Brown) 寄予厚望的大约四十年前，汤姆·贝内特 (Tom Bennett) 是全美第一个对他做出同样选择的篮球界人士。这位梅萨社区学院（Mesa Community College）的教练，向当时在德国籍籍无名、身为美国空军军人子弟的高中生布朗提供了一个建队名额。
布朗接受了邀请，并在日后将贝内特视为恩师，称其“帮助我成长为一个真正的男人”。多年来，他们一直保持着密切的联系，贝内特关注着这位昔日弟子的一举一动，直到去年夏天尼克斯向布朗发出执教邀请。
“当迈克刚拿到纽约的那份工作时，我很为他担心，”贝内特回忆道，“因为，我不知道该怎么说，但迈克真的是个非常友善的人，对别人特别好。而我觉得，纽约人有时给人的印象是他们对别人会非常苛刻。
“所以，我当时很担心他能否适应那种环境。但事实证明，情况完全不同。”
完全不同 可能是对2026年NBA总决赛最含蓄的官方说辞了。周三晚上，布朗麾下的尼克斯将在圣安东尼奥挑战马刺，拉开总决赛的帷幕。
贝内特绝非唯一一个担心布朗——这位出了名的“老好人”——会被这座大都市生吞活剥的篮球圈资深人士。
在《Straight Game》播客节目中，曾在布朗执教的湖人队效力过的14年NBA老将马特·巴恩斯 (Matt Barnes) 称这位教练是“一个极好的人”，但“人太好了，反而容易吃亏”，并且“不是一个能统领群雄的领袖”。尽管布朗在常规赛中也有过高光时刻，但他用今年季后赛的表现，彻底粉碎了外界对他的所有质疑和担忧。
事实证明，在尼克斯成长为争冠球队的关键时期，他正是球队最需要的那个人。布朗激励着他的队员们在季后赛中豪取11连胜，并创造了历史性的净胜分纪录。他以一种其功勋卓著的前任汤姆·锡伯杜 (Tom Thibodeau) 未曾做到的方式，提升了尼克斯的上限。
布朗的人格魅力、开明态度以及阅历无数的丰富经验，帮助他一路横扫了奎因·斯奈德 (Quin Snyder) 执教的亚特兰大老鹰、尼克·纳斯 (Nick Nurse) 执教的费城76人，以及肯尼·阿特金森 (Kenny Atkinson) 执教的克利夫兰骑士。纽约已经很久很久没有见过新任主帅与成型球队之间如此完美的契合了。
正因如此，对于一支已经53年未尝冠军滋味的球队来说，夺取NBA总冠军感觉就像是一场“此时不搏，更待何时”的命运决战。1994年的尼克斯曾在总决赛中以3-2领先休斯敦火箭，却未能毕其功于一役。五年后，纽约有机会击败当时尚未染指任何总冠军戒指、年仅23岁的蒂姆·邓肯 (Tim Duncan)，但由于帕特里克·尤因 (Patrick Ewing) 因跟腱撕裂缺阵，拉里·约翰逊 (Larry Johnson) 也因膝伤步履蹒跚，尼克斯最终在大比分1-4落败。而尼克斯花了整整27年的时间，才重新回到了这个舞台。
他们比94年和99年的那两支队伍更强，并且他们有机会在22岁的超级巨星维克托·文班亚马 (Victor Wembanyama) 夺得任何总冠军戒指之前击败他。更棒的是，纽约的首发五虎——在攻防两端都默契十足——正处于这个赛季阶段所能达到的最健康状态。
是的，米切尔·罗宾逊 (Mitchell Robinson) 必须带伤应对他骨折的小拇指，这在试图用足够多且灵活的内线肉盾去消耗文班时确实是个难题。但想想卫冕冠军俄克拉荷马城雷霆刚刚经历的遭遇吧，他们在缺少了二号球星杰伦·威廉姆斯 (Jalen Williams) 的情况下，最终无缘再次杀入总决赛。
可以预料的是，如果尼克斯下赛季有幸重返这个舞台，他们届时面临的伤病影响，恐怕会比罗宾逊的手指骨折要严重得多。
所以，现在就是属于他们的时刻。这必须是属于他们的时刻。杰伦·布伦森 (Jalen Brunson) 足够优秀，完全可以像斯蒂芬·库里 (Steph Curry) 和伊塞亚·托马斯 (Isiah Thomas) 那样，以小个子核心的身份领衔一出夺冠大戏；而卡尔-安东尼·唐斯 (Karl-Anthony Towns) 在得分、传球和篮板方面的全能身手，也足以胜任他的最佳拍档。
尼克斯在防守端的坚韧以及寻找空位队友的默契配合，让人不禁频频将其与雷德·霍尔兹曼 (Red Holzman) 执教的那支尼克斯相提并论——正是那支球队在1970年和1973年为队史夺得了仅有的两座总冠军奖杯。整座城市已经彻底为这支尼克斯倾倒。
距离属于他们的“卡美洛时代”仅仅只差四场胜利。
从锡伯杜执教首年季后赛首轮出局，到后来的第二轮、第三轮，再到如今站上总决赛的舞台，纽约在这一路攀升中经历了太多。布伦森已经参加了81场季后赛，其中56场是代表尼克斯出战。
而文班亚马仅参加过17场季后赛，所以，不，这并不是那支格雷格·波波维奇 (Gregg Popovich) 时代的马刺。他们在这个舞台上还完全是新兵。39岁的米奇·约翰逊 (Mitch Johnson) 作为他们的主教练前途无量，但对于56岁的迈克·布朗来说，未来就是现在。
他曾作为助理教练四次随队夺冠，其中就包括在波波维奇执教的马刺队时期；而在他此前的执教生涯中，他也曾带领一支球队（2007年的克利夫兰骑士）杀入过总决赛，但最终被那支同样由波波维奇率领的马刺横扫。
布朗作为主教练执教了超过100场季后赛，胜率接近60%。但他也曾被三家俱乐部解雇过四次。
可以说，他在NBA见识过了一切——高光、低谷，以及最丑陋的挣扎。但布朗对于纽约来说是完美的，纽约对他而言亦是如此。
他的篮球之旅始于那片沙漠。当时，一位名叫罗恩·约翰逊 (Ron Johnson) 的前亚利桑那州立大学球员在德国担任教练，他将布朗推荐给了贝内特。贝内特第一次看这个孩子训练时，注意到他在跳投时总是把球拉到头顶后面，与其说是投篮，不如说是把球扔出去。
“你是认真的吗？”贝内特问他。
“我是非常认真的，”布朗回答道。
“我们必须改变你的投篮动作，”教练告诉他。
“我们什么时候开始？”布朗问。
他每天都在球馆里挥汗如雨，额外加练300次投篮，一年365天从不间断，包括夏天、春假，以及大学朋友们在外派对狂欢的那些夜晚。当布朗因背伤无法上场时，他在训练期间趴在地上，背上敷着冰袋，专注地观察队友们的跑位。
“当迈克伤愈重新站上训练场的第一天，他就在指导大家该往哪里跑，战术该怎么打，”贝内特说，“他总是热心帮助年轻球员。他的领导力简直不可思议。我认为我们队里从未有过比他更好的领袖。”
在梅萨，他们携手取得了30连胜，并将球队带到了全美社区大学第一的位置。之后，布朗升入圣迭戈大学参加NCAA一级联盟比赛，随后在丹佛掘金队担任无薪暑期实习生，开启了他的非球员职业生涯。这是一条多么曲折漫长的道路啊。
在他此前唯一一次作为主教练的总决赛之旅中，即使拥有勒布朗·詹姆斯 (LeBron James)，布朗面对马刺也毫无胜算。但这一次，面对马刺，他迎来了解锁荣耀的真正机会。布朗可能再也不会有这样的机会了。他手下最好的球员布伦森，也可能再也不会有这样的机会了。
“这是千载难逢的机会，”这位队长说道，“你绝对不能视其为理所当然。”
对于尼克斯来说，一切天时地利人和已然齐备。他们需要在马刺之前赢下四场比赛，因为这确实让人感觉是一场“此时不搏，更待何时”的终极追逐。
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
点击查看原文：For Mike Brown’s Knicks, it may be now or never to win the NBA title
For Mike Brown’s Knicks, it may be now or never to win the NBA title
Nearly four decades before the New York Knicks took a big chance on Mike Brown, Tom Bennett was the first basketball figure in the United States to do the same. The Mesa Community College coach offered the relatively unknown high school player in Germany and son of an Air Force man a spot on his team.
Brown accepted and later credited Bennett as a mentor who “helped me mature into a man.” They remained close over the years, with Bennett tracking every move his former player made right up until the Knicks came calling last summer.
“I was worried about Mike in New York when he first got the job,” Bennett recalled, “because, I don’t know how to say this, but Mike is really a friendly person and he’s good to other people. And I think sometimes the reputation of New Yorkers is they can be really hard on other people.
“So I was concerned about him in that situation. But it’s turned out to be quite different.”
Quite different would be the official understatement of the 2026 NBA Finals, which start Wednesday night for Brown’s Knicks and the Spurs in San Antonio.
Bennett was hardly the only basketball lifer who worried that Brown, a card-carrying Mr. Nice Guy, would get chewed up and spit out by the big city.
On the Straight Game Podcast, Matt Barnes, a 14-year NBA veteran who played on Brown’s Lakers team, called the coach “a great person” who is “too nice for his own good” and “not a leader of men.” Though he had his moments in the regular season, Brown has used these playoffs to obliterate every criticism or concern about him.
He has turned out to be exactly what the Knicks needed at exactly the right time in their development as a championship contender. Brown has inspired his players to win 11 consecutive postseason games by a record-setting margin. He has elevated the Knicks in a way that his accomplished predecessor, Tom Thibodeau, could not.
Brown’s personal touch, open-mindedness and seen-it-all experience helped him lay waste to Quin Snyder’s Atlanta Hawks, Nick Nurse’s Philadelphia 76ers and Kenny Atkinson’s Cleveland Cavaliers. New York has not seen such an ideal match between an incoming coach and an established team in a long, long time.
And that is why the NBA championship feels so much like a now-or-never proposition for a franchise that hasn’t won it in 53 years. The 1994 Knicks had a 3-2 finals lead over the Houston Rockets and couldn’t close it out. Five years later, New York had a chance to beat a 23-year-old Tim Duncan before he had won any of his rings and lost in five games because Patrick Ewing was out with an Achilles tear and Larry Johnson was slowed by a bum knee. It only took the Knicks 27 years to make it back to this point.
They are better than the ’94 and ’99 teams, and they have a chance to beat 22-year-old superstar Victor Wembanyama before he wins any rings. Better yet, New York’s starting five — completely connected on both sides of the ball — is as healthy as a lineup can be this time of year.
Yeah, Mitchell Robinson will have to manage his broken pinkie finger, and that is a problem when trying to throw enough active big bodies at Wemby. But consider what the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder just endured without their second-best player, Jalen Williams, falling short of another trip to the finals.
Chances are, if the Knicks are fortunate enough to return to this stage next season, they will be dealing with an injury more impactful than Robinson’s fractured finger.
So, this is their time. This has to be their time. Jalen Brunson is good enough to join Steph Curry and Isiah Thomas as small lead actors in a winning championship drama, and Karl-Anthony Towns is versatile enough as a scorer, passer and rebounder to be his co-star.
The Knicks are playing defense and hitting the open man with enough regularity to draw all kinds of comparisons to the Red Holzman teams that won the franchise’s only titles in 1970 and ’73. The city has fallen hard for these Knicks.
Camelot is only four victories away.
New York has been through a lot on the climb from first-round playoff dropouts, in Thibodeau’s first year, to second-round, third-round and now fourth-round participants. Brunson has competed in 81 playoff games, 56 of them with the Knicks.
Wembanyama has competed in a mere 17, so no, these aren’t the Gregg Popovich Spurs. They are brand new at this. Mitch Johnson, 39, has a great future ahead of him as their coach, but for Mike Brown, 56, the future is right now.
He has been part of four championship teams as an assistant, including one with Popovich’s Spurs, and he has taken a team in a previous head-coaching life (Cleveland Cavaliers, 2007) to the finals, where he was swept by those same Popovich Spurs.
Brown has been a head coach in more than 100 postseason games, and he has won nearly 60 percent of them. He has also been fired four times by three organizations.
Again, he has seen it all in the NBA — the good, the bad and the very ugly. But Brown has been perfect for New York, and New York has been perfect for him.
His basketball journey started in the desert, after a former Arizona State player named Ron Johnson, a coach in Germany, recommended Brown to Bennett, who watched the kid work out for the first time and noticed that he was pulling the ball over his head on his jumper and throwing it more than shooting it.
“Are you serious about this?” Bennett asked him.
“I’m very serious,” Brown replied.
“We have to change your shot,” the coach told him
“When do we start?” Brown asked.
Dripping sweat like mad, he took an extra 300 shots in the gym every day of the year, including the summer, spring break, and all those nights his college friends were out partying. When Brown was out with a back injury, he lay on his stomach during practice, with ice on his back, and studied his teammates.
“And the first day Mike got up to practice, he was giving people instructions on where to go and how to run things,” Bennett said. “He was always helping the young players. His leadership was unreal. I don’t think we ever had a better leader.”
Together, they won 30 straight games at Mesa and were ranked the No. 1 junior college team in America before Brown moved up to Division I ball at San Diego, and then started his non-playing career as an unpaid summer intern with the Denver Nuggets. What a winding road it has been.
In his only previous trip to the finals as a head coach, Brown had no shot against the Spurs, even with LeBron James. He’s got a real shot against the Spurs this time. Brown might never get another one. His best player, Brunson, might never get another one.
“Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” the captain said, “(that) you can’t take for granted.”
It’s all come together for the Knicks. They need to win four games before the Spurs do, because this sure feels like it’s a now-or-never pursuit.
By Ian O’Connor, via The Athletic