CHARLESTON, S.C. – Perhaps it’s fitting that the fast-talking gang from New York is spending the week in what has to be the East Coast’s slowest paced city. Under Larry Brown’s new regime, the Knicks are going to turn the speed dial down. Way down.

Of course, it’s not as if they had it turned up to 11 before. New York played at the league’s 16th-fastest pace a year ago, putting them right around the league average. Brown’s Detroit team, however, was the NBA’s second slowest, averaging nearly seven fewer possessions per game than New York.

In keeping with the theme, the Knicks have been busily trading in their greyhounds for mules during the off-season. The Knicks picked up slow-footed big men like Jerome James and Eddy Curry to replace the undersized interior players used a year ago, making it more imperative that the Knicks slow things down.

Perhaps no player will have to make a bigger adjustment than Quentin Richardson. The Knicks’ presumptive starting small forward (now that Tim Thomas has been traded), Richardson played in Phoenix for one of the most blindingly fast teams in NBA history. Now he finds himself at the opposite end of the spectrum.

“We’ve got a lot more structure,” Richardson said, adding, “It will help us on the back end [of the schedule]. We’ll be a lot more prepared.” Richardson felt that once teams had a chance to study what the Suns were doing, it was easier to stop them, and the team had less to fall back on during the postseason.

That won’t be the case in New York, and Richardson says he’s fine with it. “I can adapt,” he said. “I played that way before I came to Phoenix.” As an L.A. Clipper, Richardson played for Brown protege Alvin Gentry, who adopted a similarly slow-paced style while pounding the ball inside to Elton Brand and Michael Olowokandi.

One can argue that Richardson meshes better with New York’s style anyway. Mr. Brandy’s primary skills are posting up, rebounding, and shooting 3-pointers, which makes him a natural fit in a walk-it-up offense. The same point can be made up and down the roster. Stephon Marbury is a half-court pick-and-roll guy, and vets like Penny Hardaway, Allan Houston, Malik Rose, and Maurice Taylor are more valuable in a slow tempo. Of the key players, only shooting guard Jamal Crawford would seem to be more suited to an open-court style, making New York’s inevitable pace decline seem long overdue.

Don’t get me wrong – just because they’ll be playing slower doesn’t mean the Knicks came to Charleston to sip sweet tea on the porch and watch the boats go by. There’s also the important business of improving a defense that was tremendously bad a year ago. En route to finishing 33-49, the Knicks ranked 26th in Defensive Efficiency, my measure of a team’s points allowed per 100 possessions. Much of that was due to a lack of size in the middle, which the Knicks emphatically addressed in the off-season by acquiring three centers – James, Curry, and rookie Channing Frye. But the rest was attributable to a simple lack of intensity and accountability.

That should change this year. Brown is a stickler for details, and the details of defense won’t be ignored. Brown’s teams have improved dramatically on defense in his first year in nearly every one of his innumerable coaching stops, and the Knicks shouldn’t be any different. “He’s definitely defensive minded,” Crawford said. “He feels if we defend like were supposed to, we’ll win games.”

And on the first days of practice, Crawford and his teammates learned Brown doesn’t suffer mistakes easily. “He’s very particular about doing it the right way every single time,” said Marbury, who seemed willing (at least for the moment) to take his medicine. “All teams need that, not just our team.”

Brown sees James and Curry (if he passes his physical) as the centers of the defense – despite their periodic inattention to this task in previous stops. “I think Jerome has the ability to rebound the ball,” Brown said. “That’s got to be his priority – rebound, defend, and block shots.”

MORE NOTES FROM CHARLESTON

Curry update: The trade still hadn’t been approved as of last night as the Knicks were waiting to sign off on his physical. New York has until 6 p.m. Friday to approve the trade, and the team’s doctors may be studying his information right to the wire.

Starters not settled: Brown hasn’t decided which of the two big men will be his starter, although one figures it would be Curry, and he dropped few clues about his other lineup choices. “I don’t have any idea where everybody is going to play or who is going to start. We’ve got seven exhibition games to try to figure it out.”

Don’t expect the two behemoths to play together, though. “My gut feeling is it would be difficult because they’re both really low post players,” Brown said.

Davis dilemma: The Knicks have been artfully tap-dancing around the issue of what to do with Antonio Davis, who arrived with Curry from the Bulls. Reports out of Chicago suggested the Bulls asked New York to waive Davis as part of the trade so the Bulls could resign him, but under an obscure rule governing trades, the Knicks can’t openly admit that until the deal is completed (since they technically would be circumventing the salary cap).

Brown indicated he would like the chance to coach Davis again. “He’s a great guy, he can play more than one position, and he’s a true professional.” But with seven frontcourt players already on the roster in James, Curry, Frye, David Lee, Taylor, Rose, and Jackie Butler, it hardly seems necessary to add Davis to the mix.

Rookie rituals: First-round picks Frye, Lee, and Nate Robinson are getting the typical treatment in their maiden training camp, lugging bags of balls to and from the hotel and cleaning the locker room. Robinson said he hadn’t been retrieving coffee for the veterans, a normal rookie ritual, because the team has few coffee drinkers.

Injury report: As expected, a few minor maladies cropped up. Both James and Richardson strained hamstrings on the second day of camp and had to take a seat, while Taylor briefly exited Tuesday morning’s workout with leg cramps. James also aggravated an injury to his left thumb on Monday before the team’s media day, but since it’s his non-shooting hand, he doesn’t expect it to be a problem.

Mr. Hollinger is the author of the 2005-06 Pro Basketball Forecast.