We all know who Tom Thibodeau is as a coach. He will get results in the regular season. His teams will always play regular season games as if they are postseason games by going all in. His teams will always be in the playoffs.
But in the postseason, his teams don’t do much. The best they can do is get to the second round and flame out. His high mark came when he led the Chicago Bulls to the Eastern Conference Finals in his first season as a head coach. He is 31-41 in the playoffs for a reason.
This begs this question: Is he the right coach to lead the Knicks to a championship?
It takes a special coach to win in the postseason as Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra has done in his career. It requires a coach who knows what he is doing out there and stays one step ahead of his counterpart.
We can blame Julius Randle and RJ Barrett for everything that went wrong with the Knicks, but it’s not like Thibodeau was blameless. He didn’t exactly put his players in a position to succeed, in a sense, he did not get his role players to perform. He couldn’t figure out a way to combat the Heat’s 3-point shooting. He couldn’t be creative in running up an offensive play as he basically relied on Jalen Brunson to do much of the scoring. In other words, he was running more iso sets.
The Knicks head coach did not seem to have an answer for everything Spoelstra was doing out there.
It’s no wonder there’s a question whether or not Thibodeau can lead the Knicks to the next level.
Let’s face it: The Knicks won mainly because of Jalen Brunson’s excellent first season with the team. He made shots when it mattered in the fourth quarter and made plays on the defensive end to change momentum.
Thibodeau continues to not get the most out of his young players. Barrett hasn’t exactly been a star, despite Knicks fans thinking he is. Quentin Grimes, Miles McBride, Immanuel Quickley, Mitchell Robinson and Obi Toppin haven’t developed into NBA cornerstone players.
It’s fair to wonder if the coaches switched teams in the Knicks and Heat series, would the Knicks be better off? I would bet Spoelstra would get a lot more out of the Knicks' supplemental players than Thibodeau. He just knows the right matchups and plays to get them to do well.
This series was winnable for the Knicks. It came down to coaching. Spoelstra just knew how to get more results out of his role players, including his aging players, Kevin Love and Kyle Lowry. He has gotten productivity from seven of his undrafted players.
That’s why it’s easy to question how far Thibodeau can go with the Knicks.
Yes, the Knicks need another star player to complement Brunson. Barrett and Randle are not it. Neither is anyone else on the roster. They need to get Devin Booker, who could be available, but many teams can offer better packages to get Booker.
Realistically, the Knicks need to settle for a player like Karl-Anthony Towns, Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby or DeMar DeRozan. It can work for the right coach, like Spoelstra. It likely wouldn’t work with Thibodeau, who needs stars to do well to compensate for his coaching.
The Knicks could have gone to the NBA Finals this year. It was out there for the taking. They didn’t get it done. It was a blown opportunity.
You can say the Knicks season is a success. That’s fine, but let’s remember the Knicks haven’t won a championship in 50 years. They also haven’t made it to the Eastern Conference Finals in 23 years or to the NBA Finals in 24 years.
For a big-market team with a great history to have such a long drought, it’s unacceptable.
I haven’t seen much from Thibodeau to make me think he is any different than Mike D’Antoni and Mike Woodson. I haven’t seen anything to suggest this coach is going to elevate the Knicks like Pat Riley once did.
It could just be that Thibodeau is a decent head coach who can only take the team as far as he could, which is being a second-round staple.
But the Knicks are not paying him a high salary just to play hard and compete every night. He wasn’t hired just to be competitive and competent. He wasn’t hired just to coach in the second round. He was hired to win a championship.
No one is saying he is the worst coach in the NBA. His results speak for themselves, but he does lack a championship on his resume. He hasn’t coached an NBA Finals appearance, and he hasn’t been in a conference final since his first year as an NBA head coach. Once again, he got outcoached and outclassed by Spoelstra.
There have to be questions about Thibodeau moving forward.
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