Mike Brown was hired to coach the Knicks for this moment. He has his team ready for it

GREENBURGH, N.Y. (AP) — Mike Brown was hired for this moment.

The New York Knicks already had a coach who could take them to the Eastern Conference finals — and they fired him immediately after.

Whoever replaced Tom Thibodeau would do so knowing he was inheriting a seat that was already warm, taking an undeniable win-now job where the only way he could demonstrate he made the team better was by reaching the NBA Finals. The pressure grew even more during the season, when the owner said he believed the Knicks should play for the title.

The expectations were clear, though Brown never needed to have them explained.

“People have talked about a mandate,” Brown said recently. “Like, I’m coaching to win, so it doesn’t matter what others say. I’m disappointed if we’re not in the finals and having a chance to win it.”

He has led the Knicks back to the conference finals, where they will play either Detroit or Cleveland. They were two losses from going home in the first round in what could have been a flop worthy of a firing. Instead, he changed some things, stuck with others, and the Knicks have reeled off seven straight wins, mostly in convincing fashion.

“He’s done a great job of adjusting our team to give us the best chance to win,” center Karl-Anthony Towns said, “and the spot we’re in now is because of his courage and the trust to change what we were doing and put us in a better position.”

Brown’s resume was certainly worthy of the job. He’s a two-time NBA Coach of the Year, the latter as the first unanimous winner in 2023 after leading the Sacramento Kings to their first playoff appearance since 2006, ending what was the longest active drought in North American pro sports.

But there was going to be skepticism with any hire, in part because many people weren't sure Thibodeau should've even been fired. The Knicks won just one playoff series between 2001 and his hiring in 2020, and he brought them to the postseason four times in five years, culminating last season with their first conference finals appearance in 25 years.

Yet the Knicks wanted a coach with a different style. Someone who would be the boss without being bossy. Someone who would make decisions about the team without the feeling that only he got to decide.

Brown gives everyone from the front office to the players a say.

“He’s always wanted to have open dialogue since day one," captain Jalen Brunson said. "And obviously he’s still the coach and he’s going to make the decisions and everything. But I mean, we give our opinions, and whether they’re good or bad opinions, they’re talked about and they’re decided on later.”

Brown, of course, makes the final call. And the ones he made when the Knicks faced their only adversity thus far in the postseason clearly turned out right.

Mikal Bridges was off to a terrible start against Atlanta, and after he was scoreless in just 21 minutes in Game 3, there were cries for Brown to bench the guard who had started every game in his two seasons with the Knicks.

Brown stayed the course, and there’s no sitting Bridges down now. After scoring 24 points in the Game 6 finisher against the Hawks, he averaged 17.5 points on nearly 64% shooting in the sweep of Philadelphia, all while leading the defensive effort against 76ers star guard Tyrese Maxey.

The other decision was to have Brunson, his All-Star point guard, initiate less of the offense. Instead, the Knicks have run more by positioning Towns up high and letting him find cutters. His passing has opened up more space on the floor for Brunson and others to find easier shots.

Again, there was discussion before the decision. But, perhaps showing the players’ belief in Brown, it was apparently a short one.

“The dialogue was: ‘OK, let’s do it,’” Brunson said.

Brown led the Knicks to a 53-29 record, their best since 2012-13. Yet there were stretches of mediocrity after a strong start, and a distant third-place finish in the East despite a lineup headlined by two All-Stars felt underwhelming.

Brown responded by saying teams need to go through rocky times.

“He doesn’t listen to the outside noise and he doesn’t let that affect him,” forward Josh Hart said.

Brown said that's easy to do. He worked on title-winning teams under Gregg Popovich in San Antonio and Steve Kerr with Golden State, and he remembers people complaining about them.

“So shoot, people can talk about Mike Brown for sure,” Brown said. “But it’s my job to ignore the noise and it’s easy for me to do that because the pressure that I put on myself, that the team puts on itself, to be great or to try to be the best team in the league doesn’t even match up with what everybody else says throughout the course of the year.”

Brown said his only focus all season has been winning a championship. The way his Knicks are playing now, there's definitely a chance.

“The mandate and all that other stuff, like, that’s what I expect,” Brown said. “That’s what I want to do and hopefully it can happen, but who knows.”

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New York Knicks head coach Mike Brown screams during the first half of Game 2 in a second-round NBA basketball playoffs series against the Philadelphia 76ers, Wednesday, May 6, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Africa’s top public health body has confirmed a new Ebola outbreak in Congo’s Ituri province, the 17th since the disease first emerged in the country in 1976.

A total of 246 suspected cases and 65 deaths in Congo have already been recorded in the new outbreak, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement on Friday.

In neighboring Uganda, an Ebola case has been confirmed in a man from Congo who died in a hospital in the capital, Kampala. It said the man was tested posthumously.

Here’s what to know about the health crisis:

The suspected Ebola cases have mainly been recorded in Ituri's Mongwalu and Rwampara health zones. Suspected cases have also been reported in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province.

So far, only four of the deaths reported are laboratory-confirmed cases, but the new outbreak was confirmed after many suspected cases.

Ituri is in a remote eastern part of Congo with poor road networks, and is more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the nation’s capital, Kinshasa.

One major concern, the Africa CDC said, is the proximity of affected areas to Uganda and South Sudan. Bunia, Ituri's main city, is near the border with Uganda.

The agency said there's also risk of further spread due to intense population movement and attacks by armed groups that have killed dozens and displaced thousands in parts of Ituri province in the past year.

There are also gaps in contact tracing, the Africa CDC said, as local authorities race to find those who might have been exposed to the virus.

Africa CDC said results so far suggest a variant of Ebola other than the Zaire Ebola strain. It said sequencing is ongoing to further characterize the strain, with results expected within the next 24 hours.

The Ebola Zaire strain was prominent in Congo’s past outbreaks, including the 2018 to 2020 outbreak in the eastern region that killed more than 1,000 people.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said during Congo's Ebola outbreak last year that the country has a stockpile of treatments and some 2,000 doses of vaccine. However, the vaccine is directed at Ebola Zaire, it said.

Dr. Gabriel Nsakala, a professor of public health who has been involved in past Ebola outbreak responses in Congo, said treatments for viral infections like Ebola are often directed at symptoms and that efforts regarding vaccines would become clearer when the strain in the new outbreak is confirmed.

The Africa CDC has convened an urgent high-level coordination meeting Friday with health authorities from Congo, Uganda and South Sudan, together with key partners including U.N. agencies and other countries.

The meeting, the agency said, will focus on immediate response priorities, cross-border coordination, surveillance, safe and dignified burials and resource mobilization, among other areas.

Congo and health workers on the ground have a high level of experience from past outbreaks, in addition to existing infrastructure such as laboratories, said Nsakala. “Now, the expertise and equipment need to be delivered quickly,” he added.

In Uganda, authorities said contacts linked to the one case have been quarantined, including a high-risk contact who is a close relative of the deceased. They said the case was “imported” from Congo, and no local cases have yet been confirmed.

Congo is Africa’s second-largest country by land area and often faces logistical challenges in responding to disease outbreaks due to bad roads and long distances.

During last year’s outbreak, which lasted three months, the WHO initially faced significant challenges in delivering vaccines, which took a week after the outbreak was confirmed.

Funding has also been problematic. During last year's outbreak, health officials were concerned about the impact of recent U.S. funding cuts.

The U.S. had supported the response to Congo’s past Ebola outbreaks, including in 2021 when the U.S. Agency for International Development provided up to $11.5 million to support efforts across Africa.

The Ebola virus is highly contagious and can be transmitted to people from wild animals. It then spreads in the human population through contact with bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen, and with surfaces and materials such as bedding and clothing contaminated with these fluids.

The disease it causes is a rare but severe — and often fatal — illness in people. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain and at times internal and external bleeding.

The virus was first discovered in 1976, near the Ebola River in what is now Congo. The first outbreaks occurred in remote villages in Central Africa, near tropical rainforests.

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Saleh Mwanamilongo in Bonn, Germany, contributed.

FILE - Health workers wearing protective suits tend to an Ebola victim kept in an isolation tent in Beni, Congo, July 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)

FILE - Health workers dressed in protective gear begin their shift at an Ebola treatment center in Beni, Congo, July 16, 2019. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)

FILE - A health worker sprays disinfectant on his colleague after working at an Ebola treatment center in Beni, eastern Congo, Sept 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Al-hadji Kudra Maliro, File)