Knicks · OMG! Thibs fired! (page 36)

LivingLegend wrote:

fishmike wrote:

EwingsGlass wrote:

Nalod wrote:

Philc1 wrote:Ever wonder why Thibs and neither of the Van Gundy bros have never won a championship as a head coach? They are all very limited at calling offense. Thibs did a great job here but our offense had zero creativity literally Thibs idea of ball movement when he wasn’t calling ISO was players dribbling behind the 3 point line then someone running to the dribbling player to do an exchange not even a pass.

Overly simplistic take that does not factor so many variables.
JVG did not win finals because SAS were simply much better team.

Because they had an offense.

how did OKC's offense look vs. the Pacers? Like during the whole 4th qtr vs the Pacers? How did it look?

I said this after game 1 and saying it again....

Pacers absolutely look like they belong on the floor with OKC and while OKC ran roughshod over most teams this year the Pacers have stood toe-toe with them on both sides of the court. Really impressed with Pacers thus far and how much their younger guys like Nembhart, Nesmith, Mathurin and yes Hali have played.

Pacers ability to get up floor quickly, continue to move the ball and their own bodies has negated a great OKC strength where they can overload the floor against great iso players -- the movement, the quickness of the offense and Hali's ability to create passing angles have really made OKC look normal thus far.

Another huge edge for Indy has been that Turner (and Pascal to a degree) have seemed to totally negate I-Hart --- similar to how I-Hart shrunk as playoffs progressed with Knicks last year.

wait... so you are saying Thibs did NOT get outcoached? That the Pacers are just that good? I am so confused. I thought we lost because of Thib's poor coaching, rotations and inability to create an offense. Hopefully Mike Brown or whoever gets us a few titles. Maybe we trade Josh... then we wont have to suffer through all these national televised announcers talking about what a winning player he is. All up from here

I think you can safely say for about half to 60% of the playoffs the Knicks looked championship quality on D and not so much the other games. Regular season was a slog defensively for most of the year. It seemed like we were getting closer.

I think given so much of the issues were communication and that KAT didn't truly have an offseason with the team, you could have made a pretty strong argument to give Thibs another full offseason with this roster to try and get it in order. Enough positive signs were there.

Offense was another story- offense looked ugly all year, yet finished in the top 10 ALL time in offensive rating. So it was ugly, but possibly effective enough? I think the defensive issues were much worse. That said, turnovers killed us vs. Indy - which is largely b/c Thibs ugly ball control offense relies on low turnovers. We never handled the press effectively. He didn't fix that.

My point is I don't think this is a major makeover. There must have been chemsistry issues in the locker room or between the coaching staff and front office that may have been a large cause. Think in the absence of that, there was enough evidence in the results over the year and most recently to stay patient.

EwingsGlass wrote:

Nalod wrote:

Philc1 wrote:Ever wonder why Thibs and neither of the Van Gundy bros have never won a championship as a head coach? They are all very limited at calling offense. Thibs did a great job here but our offense had zero creativity literally Thibs idea of ball movement when he wasn’t calling ISO was players dribbling behind the 3 point line then someone running to the dribbling player to do an exchange not even a pass.

Overly simplistic take that does not factor so many variables.
JVG did not win finals because SAS were simply much better team.

Because they had an offense.

Van Gundy had the potential for a run and gun roster that played a slogging style. It wasn't a great match of roster to coach, but when he let Camby free in the playoffs it started to make more sense. The Finals we were outmanned - Ewing down vs. peak Twin Towers was not a matchup we could handle given the size that we had. LJ undersized PF against Duncan/Admiral wasn't gonna work.

VDesai wrote:I think you can safely say for about half to 60% of the playoffs the Knicks looked championship quality on D and not so much the other games. Regular season was a slog defensively for most of the year. It seemed like we were getting closer.

I think given so much of the issues were communication and that KAT didn't truly have an offseason with the team, you could have made a pretty strong argument to give Thibs another full offseason with this roster to try and get it in order. Enough positive signs were there.

Offense was another story- offense looked ugly all year, yet finished in the top 10 ALL time in offensive rating. So it was ugly, but possibly effective enough? I think the defensive issues were much worse. That said, turnovers killed us vs. Indy - which is largely b/c Thibs ugly ball control offense relies on low turnovers. We never handled the press effectively. He didn't fix that.

My point is I don't think this is a major makeover. There must have been chemsistry issues in the locker room or between the coaching staff and front office that may have been a large cause. Think in the absence of that, there was enough evidence in the results over the year and most recently to stay patient.

Knicks are pretty darn close. Having Mitch in the mix really helped the defense, and it was tested against Boston and Indiana. Wonder how it would have been with a full season of available reps.

I'm trying to recall how the Knicks offense was over the course of the season, I dont think it was ugly all year. It certainly was not polished all year by any means. Purely by stats, for Oct-Dec, Knicks were rated top 3 and clearly in the top tier with Boston and Cleveland; I don't know if early on the offense was ugly but that's eye of beerholder.

Team stats: https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/advanced...
Player stats: https://www.nba.com/stats/players/tradit...

January is when things fall apart. It's where guys start to miss games, starting with Deuce in Jan (sprinkled in with a few KAT injury games too) and then OG in Feb, Brunson in March. Mitch started back up in March. As a team, Jan to end of regular season in mid April, that shit was ugly.

Knicks could not solve 2-3 problems well enough: secondary ball handling and play-making when teams pressure Brunson. PF/wing on KAT. On court communications, probably mostly on the defensive side of things.

I'm still trying to figure out when Thibs needed to maximize the 5-out offense with KAT. Was it during the Oct-Dec phase when shit was working and the Knicks were a top ~4 team record wise while boasting a stout top 2 offensive rating and only a game behind Boston? It's unfortunate that Deuce was a bit up and down during the first couple months of the season. Perhaps change could have happened in Jan when Deuce was out and not playing well or in Feb when OG was out or in March when Brunson was out? The ask and expectation don't really align with reality.

Fair take:

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Haven't watched:

martin wrote:

VDesai wrote:I think you can safely say for about half to 60% of the playoffs the Knicks looked championship quality on D and not so much the other games. Regular season was a slog defensively for most of the year. It seemed like we were getting closer.

I think given so much of the issues were communication and that KAT didn't truly have an offseason with the team, you could have made a pretty strong argument to give Thibs another full offseason with this roster to try and get it in order. Enough positive signs were there.

Offense was another story- offense looked ugly all year, yet finished in the top 10 ALL time in offensive rating. So it was ugly, but possibly effective enough? I think the defensive issues were much worse. That said, turnovers killed us vs. Indy - which is largely b/c Thibs ugly ball control offense relies on low turnovers. We never handled the press effectively. He didn't fix that.

My point is I don't think this is a major makeover. There must have been chemsistry issues in the locker room or between the coaching staff and front office that may have been a large cause. Think in the absence of that, there was enough evidence in the results over the year and most recently to stay patient.

Knicks are pretty darn close. Having Mitch in the mix really helped the defense, and it was tested against Boston and Indiana. Wonder how it would have been with a full season of available reps.

I'm trying to recall how the Knicks offense was over the course of the season, I dont think it was ugly all year. It certainly was not polished all year by any means. Purely by stats, for Oct-Dec, Knicks were rated top 3 and clearly in the top tier with Boston and Cleveland; I don't know if early on the offense was ugly but that's eye of beerholder.

Team stats: https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/advanced...
Player stats: https://www.nba.com/stats/players/tradit...

January is when things fall apart. It's where guys start to miss games, starting with Deuce in Jan (sprinkled in with a few KAT injury games too) and then OG in Feb, Brunson in March. Mitch started back up in March. As a team, Jan to end of regular season in mid April, that shit was ugly.

Knicks could not solve 2-3 problems well enough: secondary ball handling and play-making when teams pressure Brunson. PF/wing on KAT. On court communications, probably mostly on the defensive side of things.

I'm still trying to figure out when Thibs needed to maximize the 5-out offense with KAT. Was it during the Oct-Dec phase when shit was working and the Knicks were a top ~4 team record wise while boasting a stout top 2 offensive rating and only a game behind Boston? It's unfortunate that Deuce was a bit up and down during the first couple months of the season. Perhaps change could have happened in Jan when Deuce was out and not playing well or in Feb when OG was out or in March when Brunson was out? The ask and expectation don't really align with reality.

KAT is an interesting offensive player. We only played Minnesota 2x per year, so not like I saw dozens and dozens of KAT games before this year. KAT doesn't play anything like a normal big. I've never seen a player his size that loved to drive the ball like a guard from behind the 3 point line as much as he does. He is pretty damn good at it. But so much of his scoring is his ability to blow by or take a center off the dribble from the perimeter.

There aren't many teams that play 5 out, but if you take Boston and Indy as examples, Turner, KP, Horford don't really put the ball on the floor much. They are also likely to take the 3 without hesitating. If KAT thinks the drive is a better option he will pass on the 3 to drive.

What I'm saying in so many words is that I think people are defaulting to the assumption that the Knicks should have played more 5 out, but is KAT really someone who wants to play that way? Obviously people point the finger to Josh - Josh not shooting allows bigs to sag off him and kill spacing. But if KAT shot more 3's over smaller wings, would you be able to get away with throwing a roaming big on Josh? People keep pointing to Thibs not giving KAT enough looks at 3 and Thibs keeping Josh out as killing the 5 out. My point is I don't think its just a Josh thing, even though that's the way it's been painted. KAT needs to let fly more. KAT needs to be better screening for Jalen to get more pick and pop. When those things are working, the offense was working, even with Josh on the floor.

fishmike wrote:

MaTT4281 wrote:The Soul speaks

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+100

Firing Thibs with zero backup plan is wild and a turning into a terrible look

The back up plan is due diligence process that is not include keeping Thibs around while they consider the options to create a better public image. When it happens. Its not fair to the Thibs or the organization to operate in secret. Kind of a proper consideration is coaches don’t usually interview if thre is a current coach. At least not in this era. Phil Jax sat with dolan at a game when JVG was coaching and there was a public outcry. Phil I believe never publically negotiated or did organizations say anything. JVG went to finals and Phil took laker job.

martin wrote:

My initial thought is to want Jenkins and downgrade Brown.

Looking at career winning %s (just one tidbit) Jenkins has won ~54% of his career games and Brown a surprising 60% on much higher volume.

Brown also has been to a finals (losing).

I recall Brown being GS assistant coach with responsibility for the DEFENSE and receiving some positive accolades for the job he did.
Also took Kings to their most respectable seasons since I think dating back to the 2005 season.

I've never been a big fan of Brown but I guess I could get on board if he is given the job.

Still think I prefer Jenkins - simply based on watching Memphis under his command and liking the pace, tenacity and use of bench.

Brown has been assistan on 4 championship teams. I assume he learned quite a lot over the years.
Woodson is now assistant at SAC after tough IU stint in college. He there to mentor Christie.

What about Johnny Bryant with Mike Brown as assistant? Fact is mike brown was only 31 games into a 3 yr. 30mil contract. Is associate head caoch a harder job then head coach? Im not clairvoyant like PHilC but I can assume he not coming for the money? Maybe assistant is still a great gig rather than the noise and accountability of a head coach.

fishmike wrote:

LivingLegend wrote:

fishmike wrote:

EwingsGlass wrote:

Nalod wrote:

Philc1 wrote:Ever wonder why Thibs and neither of the Van Gundy bros have never won a championship as a head coach? They are all very limited at calling offense. Thibs did a great job here but our offense had zero creativity literally Thibs idea of ball movement when he wasn’t calling ISO was players dribbling behind the 3 point line then someone running to the dribbling player to do an exchange not even a pass.

Overly simplistic take that does not factor so many variables.
JVG did not win finals because SAS were simply much better team.

Because they had an offense.

how did OKC's offense look vs. the Pacers? Like during the whole 4th qtr vs the Pacers? How did it look?

I said this after game 1 and saying it again....

Pacers absolutely look like they belong on the floor with OKC and while OKC ran roughshod over most teams this year the Pacers have stood toe-toe with them on both sides of the court. Really impressed with Pacers thus far and how much their younger guys like Nembhart, Nesmith, Mathurin and yes Hali have played.

Pacers ability to get up floor quickly, continue to move the ball and their own bodies has negated a great OKC strength where they can overload the floor against great iso players -- the movement, the quickness of the offense and Hali's ability to create passing angles have really made OKC look normal thus far.

Another huge edge for Indy has been that Turner (and Pascal to a degree) have seemed to totally negate I-Hart --- similar to how I-Hart shrunk as playoffs progressed with Knicks last year.

wait... so you are saying Thibs did NOT get outcoached? That the Pacers are just that good? I am so confused. I thought we lost because of Thib's poor coaching, rotations and inability to create an offense. Hopefully Mike Brown or whoever gets us a few titles. Maybe we trade Josh... then we wont have to suffer through all these national televised announcers talking about what a winning player he is. All up from here

It is weird series to series and matchup to matchup how a team can look different.

I think watching Knicks vs Pacers as a true blue Knick fan it's hard to give Pacers their roses and I think our style of play mucked things up a bit because so centered on 2 players offensively with less running compared to OKC.

Verse OKC Indy's ball and body movement is to a degree negating some of OKCs great defensive pressure.

As for the Knicks -- we never looked like a championship squad all year save for a few brief moments and maybe say game 6 vs Celtics.
Somehow despite our advancement to East Finals we were stumbling/bumbling and no defense playing squad that just made far too many unforced errors and had far too many defensive breakdowns.

I've long been a Thibs supported even while holding my breath at some of his playing guys late in blowouts.

That said - I thought it was time for Thibs to go --- we need to extend our bench quality and use it and we need to take some of the overwhelming load we were putting on guys like Jalen/Kat/OG/Mikal/Josh. We need a new voice - hopefully one that works.

Thibs dug his own grave - you can only ignore your boss/bosses for so long before they've had enough. I think it was obvious he was losing team some just due to the up/down play.

Thibs is a good egg -- he did an awesome job - think it's time to try a new voice.

VDesai wrote:I think you can safely say for about half to 60% of the playoffs the Knicks looked championship quality on D and not so much the other games. Regular season was a slog defensively for most of the year. It seemed like we were getting closer.

I think given so much of the issues were communication and that KAT didn't truly have an offseason with the team, you could have made a pretty strong argument to give Thibs another full offseason with this roster to try and get it in order. Enough positive signs were there.

Offense was another story- offense looked ugly all year, yet finished in the top 10 ALL time in offensive rating. So it was ugly, but possibly effective enough? I think the defensive issues were much worse. That said, turnovers killed us vs. Indy - which is largely b/c Thibs ugly ball control offense relies on low turnovers. We never handled the press effectively. He didn't fix that.

My point is I don't think this is a major makeover. There must have been chemsistry issues in the locker room or between the coaching staff and front office that may have been a large cause. Think in the absence of that, there was enough evidence in the results over the year and most recently to stay patient.

I don't think we ever looked championship level on D -- not even close. How could we with Jalen/Kat/Josh playing close to 40 a night.

Nalod wrote:Brown has been assistan on 4 championship teams. I assume he learned quite a lot over the years.
Woodson is now assistant at SAC after tough IU stint in college. He there to mentor Christie.

What about Johnny Bryant with Mike Brown as assistant? Fact is mike brown was only 31 games into a 3 yr. 30mil contract. Is associate head caoch a harder job then head coach? Im not clairvoyant like PHilC but I can assume he not coming for the money? Maybe assistant is still a great gig rather than the noise and accountability of a head coach.

I am the anti Johnny Bryant poster on this board - I don't see the allure to be honest.

If we did go for an unproven and I don't know much about most assistants I'd bet on the guy coming from Riley/Spoelstra/Heat culture and Chis Quinn.

Me personally I think we need a guy with head coach experience with a solid (not necessarily great record).

Think Kidd would be 1 and Jenkins 2. I think Kidd could still be in play and I'm excluding a guy like Udoka.

I liked Thibs. Was frustrated at times with the rotations, and thought the team was capable of more this season, but I think it’s pretty fucked up that he only got one year with a revamped roster. Filled with flawed players.

I hope he’s coaching again next season. It’s obviously what he loves to do.

ToddTT wrote:I liked Thibs. Was frustrated at times with the rotations, and thought the team was capable of more this season, but I think it’s pretty fucked up that he only got one year with a revamped roster. Filled with flawed players.

I hope he’s coaching again next season. It’s obviously what he loves to do.

I've heard guys saying he'll never coach again but like you say it's what he lives for.

I can see any # of teams who want to establish an identity and make the playoffs chasing Thibs.

I would assume he'll be back somewhere.

LivingLegend wrote:

Nalod wrote:Brown has been assistan on 4 championship teams. I assume he learned quite a lot over the years.
Woodson is now assistant at SAC after tough IU stint in college. He there to mentor Christie.

What about Johnny Bryant with Mike Brown as assistant? Fact is mike brown was only 31 games into a 3 yr. 30mil contract. Is associate head caoch a harder job then head coach? Im not clairvoyant like PHilC but I can assume he not coming for the money? Maybe assistant is still a great gig rather than the noise and accountability of a head coach.

I am the anti Johnny Bryant poster on this board - I don't see the allure to be honest.

If we did go for an unproven and I don't know much about most assistants I'd bet on the guy coming from Riley/Spoelstra/Heat culture and Chis Quinn.

Me personally I think we need a guy with head coach experience with a solid (not necessarily great record).

Think Kidd would be 1 and Jenkins 2. I think Kidd could still be in play and I'm excluding a guy like Udoka.

I would add though Nalod that if it is an assistant being promoted to HC like a Bryant - than yes a guy like Brown as asst. head coach would be the play.

LivingLegend wrote:

VDesai wrote:I think you can safely say for about half to 60% of the playoffs the Knicks looked championship quality on D and not so much the other games. Regular season was a slog defensively for most of the year. It seemed like we were getting closer.

I think given so much of the issues were communication and that KAT didn't truly have an offseason with the team, you could have made a pretty strong argument to give Thibs another full offseason with this roster to try and get it in order. Enough positive signs were there.

Offense was another story- offense looked ugly all year, yet finished in the top 10 ALL time in offensive rating. So it was ugly, but possibly effective enough? I think the defensive issues were much worse. That said, turnovers killed us vs. Indy - which is largely b/c Thibs ugly ball control offense relies on low turnovers. We never handled the press effectively. He didn't fix that.

My point is I don't think this is a major makeover. There must have been chemsistry issues in the locker room or between the coaching staff and front office that may have been a large cause. Think in the absence of that, there was enough evidence in the results over the year and most recently to stay patient.

I don't think we ever looked championship level on D -- not even close. How could we with Jalen/Kat/Josh playing close to 40 a night.

Then how did we beat Boston? We shut down Boston for long stretches and several games.

VDesai wrote:

LivingLegend wrote:

VDesai wrote:I think you can safely say for about half to 60% of the playoffs the Knicks looked championship quality on D and not so much the other games. Regular season was a slog defensively for most of the year. It seemed like we were getting closer.

I think given so much of the issues were communication and that KAT didn't truly have an offseason with the team, you could have made a pretty strong argument to give Thibs another full offseason with this roster to try and get it in order. Enough positive signs were there.

Offense was another story- offense looked ugly all year, yet finished in the top 10 ALL time in offensive rating. So it was ugly, but possibly effective enough? I think the defensive issues were much worse. That said, turnovers killed us vs. Indy - which is largely b/c Thibs ugly ball control offense relies on low turnovers. We never handled the press effectively. He didn't fix that.

My point is I don't think this is a major makeover. There must have been chemsistry issues in the locker room or between the coaching staff and front office that may have been a large cause. Think in the absence of that, there was enough evidence in the results over the year and most recently to stay patient.

I don't think we ever looked championship level on D -- not even close. How could we with Jalen/Kat/Josh playing close to 40 a night.

Then how did we beat Boston? We shut down Boston for long stretches and several games.

Not having KP chip in on both ends like he did last year was a factor.

Could've been the perfect match. Thibs would've played him 39 mins a game and Russ would've asked for more.

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