There are certain truisms in the NBA, things that people who have been around the league a while believe to be infallible. One of them is that it's foolish to overreact to one game. In general, NBA decision-makers wait at least six weeks before taking stock of a team.

So it's way too early to make any hard and fast judgments about the 2016-17 New York Knicks. Their 117-88 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers was embarrassing, but the message out of Thursday's practice was that the Knicks will need time to get used to playing with one another -- and to Jeff Hornacek’s new approach, a lesson the coach says he thinks his players took from the season-opening loss.

"Hey, it may take a little while," Hornacek said. "You learn that we've got to rely on each other to win games, not just individual play."

That was one of many issues Tuesday that New York hopes to clean up before Saturday's home opener against the Memphis Grizzlies.

Among them:

Ball movement: Against the Cavaliers, the Knicks had more turnovers (18) than assists (17), which isn't ideal. "I think everyone knows it was terrible," said Derrick Rose, who finished with 17 points, 1 assist and 4 turnovers in 29 minutes. According to ESPN Stats & Information, the Knicks had 26 plays in which a player started and finished the possession without making a pass. On those plays, the Knicks scored 17 points on 33.3 percent shooting and committed four turnovers. Rose and Carmelo Anthony each finished at least 30 percent of Knicks' possessions while they were on the floor, per NBA.com tracking, but they combined to create only 10 assist opportunities -- or 25 fewer than Kyrie Irving and LeBron James combined for.

"If your first mentality is, 'How am I going to get the shot,' it's usually going to be a tough one, and then the next guy starts doing it," Hornacek said. "It's just [about] moving the ball; assists are contagious."

Offensive identity: Rose said after Tuesday's game that he was still getting acclimated to the triangle offense, but the Knicks didn't run it that often against Cleveland. Hornacek said the Knicks ran more pick-and-roll in their early offense, before settling into the triangle.

"A lot of times we'd get into it after we make three or four passes, [but] we took a lot of shots where it was one or no passes," Hornacek said. "When that happens, you're not really getting into [the triangle]."

Per NBA.com's tracking, New York ran 21 pick-and-roll plays in which the ball handler finished a play against Cleveland. For context, that was the fifth-highest total in the NBA and 8 percent higher than their rate last season. However, Hornacek says he doesn't believe running pick-and-roll plays is a cure-all.

"That's all we did. And we scored [88] points," Hornacek said. "If you're just doing pick-and-rolls the whole game, yeah, you're going to score some points. But you're not going to put any pressure on the defense, necessarily."

To Hornacek's point, Rose and Anthony, the Knicks' primary ball handlers Tuesday, combined to shoot only four free throws.

Poor perimeter defense: Hornacek credited guards Courtney Lee and Justin Holiday for playing strong perimeter defense against Cleveland. The rest of the Knicks? Not so much. New York allowed Cleveland to hit 37 percent of its 3-pointers -- a number that could have been much higher. Per NBA.com, nineteen of the Cavs' 30 attempts were deemed "open."

"If you're outside the lane and then you move in to help, you're not going to get out to the 3-point shot," Hornacek said.

Triangle confusion: ESPN NBA analyst Jeff Van Gundy was right when he said the triangle offense got too much credit for the Chicago Bulls' and Los Angeles Lakers' success under Phil Jackson and too much blame for the Knicks' struggles. But as long as Jackson is team president, it will be an issue that's publicly dissected. Many teams run parts of the triangle, but the Knicks are the only team that has run it in full recently. The triangle will be somewhat de-emphasized this season under Hornacek, but it's still a part of the offense. Hornacek made that clear Thursday.

Hornacek said Jackson has preached patience when it comes to executing the triangle and the Knicks' defensive schemes.

"Phil's been great trying to emphasize, 'Yes, you want to win games, but you want to get better as the year goes on,'" Hornacek said. "So if you back out of something just because it's not working offensively or defensively, you can't all of a sudden start changing things because it may not work right now.

"The point is to try to get better at that particular thing, and that's what we're trying to do."

Rose said he was still getting comfortable with the offense, which is understandable since he missed two weeks during the preseason while attending a civil trial. But Rose's ability to become acclimated to the offense is a crucial element to the beginning of the Knicks' season.

Anthony has been where Rose is now -- trying to adapt to an offense that isn't easy to grasp.

"It was the ultimate sacrifice and adjustment for me and my game to try to figure out where do I fit in in a system like that. I'm pretty sure he's feeling that right now," Anthony said of Rose. "For him, it's only been one game. It's going to take some time for him to get comfortable and feel comfortable. In the meantime, we want him playing the way we know he can play."

Rose made an interesting comment after Tuesday's game when he said he was comfortable running pick-and-rolls rather than the triangle, which he called "foreign." Again, he says he's committed to learning the system, but it's clear that it will be a challenge.

Rose, Anthony and the Knicks are preaching patience with the offense at the moment. If the club continues to struggle, that might change.

"If it looks this way after 15, 20 games, you know then I'll be sitting here singing a different tune," Anthony said. "But I know what kind of group I have, I know what type of guys we have and that first game is no indication of who we are as a team and who we will be."