Thibs May Have Coached His Last Game at the Garden

Tom Thibodeau is certainly not solely responsible for all that ails the Knicks, but he'll likely be the first man thrown overboard from the sinking ship.

Okay, y'all... It's time for us all to sit down around the dinner table and have some difficult conversations. 

As subscribers to this Substack, you guys know I was critical of coach Tom Thibodeau at times last season, but have never once called for his firing. I thought he deserved another crack at it after shockingly leading the Knicks to the four-seed during the abnormal bubble campaign of 2020-21. 

Thus, I wasn't surprised when team president Leon Rose retained Thibs over the summer, allowing him to make another run this season. Maybe New York would get off to a hot start with a legit point in place, and maybe Thibodeau could wring a few extra wins out of mediocre talent, allowing the Knicks to compete for one of the top six seeds in the East. 

However, 13 games into the season, the Knicks find themselves at 6-7 and are about to begin a grueling five-game road trip.

The Knicks' six wins have all come against subpar opponents, none of whom have winning records this season. New York has lost all five games they've played against teams above .500. Excluding victories over the Wolves and Sixers (which came against a Philly squad playing without Joel Embiid and James Harden), New York's four other wins have come against the dregs of the Eastern Conference: Orlando, Charlotte and Detroit. The combined record of those three teams is 10-30. The Knicks haven't won consecutive games since the season's first week. They were destroyed in Brooklyn last Wednesday, before eking out a victory over a Detroit team playing without Cade Cunningham.

Yet, Sunday's defeat was the low point of the 2022-23 campaign and possibly Tom Thibodeau's tenure in New York. 

The Thunder (the second-youngest team in the NBA) came into MSG Sunday afternoon and hung 145 points on the Knicks, shooting a mind-boggling 62.5% from the field. It was the most points allowed by New York in a regulation home game since the Kansas City Kings scored 145 in December of 1979.

OKC has plenty of young athletes, but they do not have many quality shooters. The Thunder entered Sunday's game shooting just 31.5% from three-point territory (the second-worst 3PT% in the league). 

However, Oklahoma City shot 17-of-31 (54.8%) from deep inside the friendly confines of MSG. It's crucial to note that of those 31 attempts, 23 of them were wide-open, according to NBA tracking data, meaning no Knick was within six feet of the Thunder player when he let go of the shot. That embarrassingly high number is indefensible (pardon the pun). 

And it's been an issue all season. As I pointed out last week, the Knicks are one of just two teams in the NBA allowing more than 20 wide-open treys per game. They've now given up 270 wide-open three-point attempts this season through their first 13 games.

Thibs has hung his hat on being deemed a top-tier defensive coach, yet New York ranks 24th in Defensive Rating, allowing 113.5 points per 100 possessions.

I've long argued that NBA coaches get too much credit when a team is winning and too much blame when losing. Talent trumps all. The Knicks front office, which constructed the current roster, also carries immense accountability for the situation New York finds itself in (more on that in a bit). However, the head coach is responsible for allocating minutes and in-game decision-making. 

In Sunday's embarrassing blowout, Thibs stubbornly instructed his troops to remain in drop coverage on the defensive end and paid the price in the form of a three-point barrage. 

In terms of his rotations, despite NY getting lit up on the perimeter, Quentin Grimes, the team's best perimeter defender (supposedly healthy and no longer listed on the injury report), logged a total of eight minutes. Deuce McBride, who led the Knicks in individual DefRtg last season, never got off the bench. 

Two minutes into the third quarter on Sunday, RJ Barrett picked up his fourth foul. Thibs yanked him from the floor, and Barrett never returned to the contest. Jalen Brunson sat out the final 17 minutes of the game. 

Evan Fournier played the entire fourth quarter, despite missing all five shots he attempted. Over the Knicks' last seven games, Fournier is averaging 2.7 points while shooting 19.4% from the floor. 

Granted, Barrett and Brunson (who finished with 17 points on 5-of-9 shooting) both played relatively poorly on Sunday, but did they not deserve the benefit of the doubt? Plenty of times in his career RJ has started slowly, only to turn it on in the second half.  

When asked about the decision to leave Barrett on the bench, Thibs responded: "We just got behind by so much. We were looking for life, and that group that was in there gave us a little bit of a spark, and so that's what we went with." 

To their credit, Brunson and Barrett took responsibility. "I mean, I wouldn't have played myself either, the way I was playing defensively," Brunson said after the game. Barrett told reporters, "I think it's time [to sit] when you're fouling enough."

If Thibs wanted to send a message to his starters, that is understandable. Yet, Julius Randle somehow evaded Thibs' discipline once again. Randle missed countless defensive assignments throughout Sunday's loss, consistently allowing opponents to blow by him and get easy looks at the rim, but he still logged a team-high 33 minutes. 

As we discussed almost daily last winter, Thibs' refusal to hold Randle accountable was a significant factor in the Knicks' bitterly disappointing 2021-22 campaign.

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In many ways, Sunday was symbolic of the failures that have hindered this franchise. 

Thibs was outcoached by 37-year-old Mark Daigneault, who employs a system more suited to today's game, while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander shredded New York, finishing with 37 points (13-for-22 FGs), five rebounds, eight assists, three steals and two blocks. On the season, SGA is averaging a whopping 31.1 points (on 54% shooting), 5.7 dimes. 4.4 rebounds, 2.1 steals and 1.5 blocks.

Four years ago, the Knicks had the 9th pick in the 2018 draft. And despite desperately needing a pure point guard, New York selected Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's teammate, Kevin Knox. After the Suns snatched up Mikal Bridges with the 10th overall pick, the Clippers took SGA at 11. Both Brides and Gilgeous-Alexander have inked massive contract extensions off their rookie contracts. Kevin Knox is riding the bench in Detroit on a minimum-salary deal.