Knicks 134, Wizards 106
BRIAN KEEFE: I'm the leader of this team. I'm the head coach of this team. So I'll take the responsibility for the last two nights, not playing up to the competitive disposition that we should be playing with, especially defensively. That will be addressed as a group, and we will get better, but that wasn't what we need to be, what our standards were, and we have to own that, and we have to look at ourselves and we have to get better. I don't really have much other than that tonight. If you guys have any questions, I'll answer that, but it'll be quick.
Q. How concerning is the competitive disposition that you're talking about?
BRIAN KEEFE: We've had it for most of the year. The last game and a half we haven't had it where we should be. We have a standard. Not good enough. We'll address it and we'll get better.
Q. What does the process of addressing it look like?
BRIAN KEEFE: It starts now, looking at ourselves in the mirror, owning what we did tonight. We're not running from it. We're not blaming anybody. We have to look inward, and we have to get better.
Q. Could it be a an accumulation of long road trip, without making excuses, guys being tired and just not mentally being where they need to be?
BRIAN KEEFE: That's the one thing that we'll never do in this organization, not anybody, especially from me and the leadership group. This is the NBA. You get paid to play. You get paid to show up, all of us. The schedule is the schedule. Everybody has a schedule. We'll never use that.
When the game starts, we have to be prepared, and that's why that's on me. We didn't have my team ready to play like we know we can, and we're going to get there. We're going to dig into that and make sure that we're ready to go as the season goes, and we're going to build the right habits. That's all I've got for tonight. Thank you.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports