OAKLAND, Calif. -- Larry Brown's arms flapped at once, his right signaling to point guard Stephon Marbury and the left pointing a big man to his spot. It's amazing he didn't throw both hands up in frustration instead. The Knicks were in the middle of another late-game collapse.
So far, Brown's New York homecoming has been anything but fun. His team has failed to win a game on the way to its worst start in 18 years, and Brown insists he might need to change his coaching style ever so slightly at age 65 to get things turned around.
"I remember when I was at Kansas, we lost five straight games. I told the team 'We're playing great,' and we won the national championship a month later," Brown recalled Friday, before the Knicks' 86-84 loss to the Golden State Warriors, New York's fifth straight defeat to start the season.
"I see signs we're getting better, but we've got to somehow get a rotation, get that down a little bit. It's going to take time. You've got to keep trying to get better, and I've got to coach much better."
Brown left the Pistons after two successful seasons _ Detroit won the NBA title in 2004 and is the two-time defending Eastern Conference champion _ when Knicks president of basketball operations Isiah Thomas wooed the Brooklyn native back to the Big Apple.
As Brown is quickly finding out, turning around a franchise in the country's largest sports market is a huge task. That's even with the great basketball minds of Thomas and Brown, Marbury as the floor leader and proven veterans such as Anfernee Hardaway to complement him.
Brown already has tried several starting rotations, and when asked how his lineup might look in the coming days, he smiled and responded with a chuckle, "Let's just get through tonight."
The fourth-winningest coach in league history, Brown is quick to blame himself for New York's early problems.
"I don't agree with that," said Hardaway, who made his season debut Friday after being inactive the first four games. "I just think he's putting more pressure on himself. We've got to come out and relieve the pressure from him, because he's given us a great game plan every single night. When we watch film the next day, we're not bringing it the way we're supposed to. In practice we're going at each other and playing hard, but we're not able to transfer it over in the games."
Brown was hired July 27 to take over his eighth NBA team. Twice before in his Hall of Fame career he began 0-5, with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1997-98 and again in 2001-02. Brown is 13 victories shy of 1,000 regular-season NBA wins, but it could be a while.
"He wants to play a certain way and it obviously is a way that works and wins," said Golden State coach Mike Montgomery. "You can't question Larry's credentials and his ability to coach and his knowledge of the game and all of those things. You have to feel it's just a matter of time. In Detroit, once guys figured out what he was after and what he needed to have done, look what happened. Certainly New York has talent."
Brown has compared this project to coaching a college team, because the Knicks are so young.
