thelesterlee
The New York Knicks are currently 25-34 and have lost 13 of their last 16 games. They’ve blown 3 20+ point leads in the last 2 weeks. Every player has regressed from what they are used to contributing in the NBA. Yet somehow, head coach Tom Thibodeau still continues to lead this team through the local landfill.
The Knicks rank 27th in points per game, 28th in pace and 25th in offensive rating. This team was absolutely smothered by the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of the playoffs last season and came out this season like ‘watch this’ and somehow have played even worse offense than they did in that series.
Thibs’s only play appears to be a high pick-n-roll leading to an iso by Julius Randle or RJ Barrett. Rarely do you see a second action or back a screen or anything happening with the players not involved in the main pick-n-roll.
But this team’s biggest problem is their inability to maintain leads. You cannot let the Oklahoma City Thunder come back from down 20 and beat you in overtime. The Thunder have announced they have zero desires to win basketball games and the Knicks flew into their city this week and said ‘same’.
Their flaw is obvious, it’s Tom Thibodeau.
The regular season is a grind. Coach Thibs’s reputation of playing his starters too many minutes and wearing them down to points where their physical health is literally in jeopardy. This motherfucker almost KILLED Luol Deng when he was coaching the Bulls.
In the 2012-13 season, Luol Deng led the NBA in minutes per game. In the postseason, he attempted to play through having meningitis and ended up needing a fucking SPINAL TAP to save his life.
The obvious example of Thibs’s nonsense is Derrick Rose blowing out his knees playing too many minutes and it’s impossible to not look at RJ Barrett’s recent lower-body injury coming off playing absurd 4th quarter minutes in a blowout game.
It’s fascinating the only players still in the league from Thibs’s Bulls days are Jimmy Butler, Derrick Rose and Taj Gibson and one of those players—Taj Gibson—is only still in the league because Thibs is the only coach in the NBA willing to play him 20 of the most unimportant minutes a game in 2022.
This season, the Knicks are 13-18 in games where the score is within 5 points with 5 minutes left to go. They have a -22 net rating which is 28th in the NBA in clutch time. These are the times when having a real offensive playbook helps. These are the times when having rested and energized players helps.
Instead, an exhausted Julius Randle gets an outlet pass and while heavy breathing, attempts to go 1-on-5 against the opposing defense usually leading to a contested midrange jumper or chucking a bullet pass into the MSG concession stands.
Here’s a beautiful late-game play call from Erik Spoelstra, a legit great basketball coach:
Erik Spoelstra just designed the greatest in-bounds play in the history of the NBA pic.twitter.com/NItQK2hZqA
— ParakHEAT Cortes (@Ryan_Cortes) November 28, 2021
Meanwhile, Thibs lost a game to the OKC Thunder because he called a timeout to challenge a foul call only to be told he already used a challenge earlier in the game and he just wasted a crucial timeout for no reason. Tom Thibodeau doesn’t even know how many timeouts and challenges he has. What are we doing here?
The Knicks enter every game at a disadvantage knowing their coach is incapable of picking up a marker and drawing up anything close to this.
It’s also worth noting the team couldn’t make any significant deals at the trade deadline last week because other teams don’t respect the Knicks’s young assets. Of course they don’t. Thibs won’t give them any minutes. Obi Toppin and Cam Reddish play fewer minutes than Taj Gibson. Taj is 36 years old. The Knicks are the 12th seed. Play these young kids.
The young players aren’t being developed. The veterans are being run into the ground. The team loses every single night. Fire Tom Thibodeau yesterday.
