Mike Brown understands the Knicks pressure cooker he's inherited

Mike Brown says he understands the pressure cooker that comes with leading the New York Knicks, a reality he has faced since taking the job. The realization came on a Friday night at Scarsdale High School, when Scarsdale opened its football season with a home game against New Rochelle and Brown and his wife, Carolyn, attended the Scarsdale Raiders' home opener.

During the game, one of the players' mothers recognized him and asked, "My gosh," she said, "How do you deal with the pressure? Your job is on the line all the time." Brown laughed at the moment. Brown noted that he has coached 758 games and won 454, a tick below a .600 winning percentage.

Brown's coaching résumé began in 1997 as an assistant to Bernie Bickerstaff in Washington; his first head coaching job came in the 2005-06 season with the Cavaliers.

That arc — decades spent in the league, moving from assistant to head coach to a top-stage job — frames Brown as a veteran navigator of a marquee franchise, where every decision is subject to scrutiny.

Brown's son, Cameron Brown, is a defensive quality-control coach for the San Francisco 49ers, a detail that adds a personal thread to the family’s long-running involvement in football and basketball.

With that background, Brown enters a tenure that will be watched closely by fans, media and teammates as the Knicks seek consistency in a market that keeps the spotlight on the franchise.