The Knicks are still under coach Tom Thibodeau

Athletics has a living reporting of Knicks against Pacers In game 1 of the 2025 NBA Finale of the Eastern Conference.

The Cleveland Cavaliers Guard Donovan Mitchell was 3-1 deficit against the Indiana Pacers, and his team went to the Free Sausage Line for three shots.

The first missed. Mitchell went back to the opposite basket to gather quickly. Then he entered the line for free throw No. 2. Also this, which he missed, he hardly grazed the front of the edge. The camera focused on the Cleveland star. His back crouched. His exhaustion felt. His hands on the knees and face down, as if the cooling system of the building in the hardwood was. Mitchell then tried for the third time to save something out of this property. This time he overcompensated and the free throwing attempt lasted a long time. Three missed free throwing, with the season on the line, from a coupling player who has previously converted 80 percent of his free throwing attempts or more during his long career. The Cavaliers played one to Two, with exhaustion jumping to help Indiana asserting itself.

The scene, even if the time was left, basically felt like the end of the Cavaliers season. The scene also worked as a perfect advertising for New York Knick’s head coach Tom Thibodeau.

The whole season and for most of his decades of head coaching career, the national story about Thibodeau is revolving to play his starters too many minutes.

He will bring it to the ground.

They are all injured.

He sabotages their goals for the success of the regular season.

Everything was said and repeated itself from the coast to coast, also in the city where he trains.

However, four teams remain in the NBA playoffs. The kinks are one of them. They played their best basketball late in games, as in two 20-point comebacks in the second half against the Boston Celtics in the second round. The most complete performance of the off-season came in a series closure of game 6, 12 playoff games at this time. Cleveland proudly made the whole season proud that his starters would not play big minutes. Nobody in the starting unit had an average of 32 minutes per game during the regular season. At the other end of the spectrum, no trainer played his starter more than Thibodeau. New York is as healthy as a team can be in this phase. The cavaliers were beaten, injured and exhausted. Of the four teams that have expired, two teams did not play their starters during the regular season (Indiana and Oklahoma City) and two teams (New York and Minnesota).

Thibodeau held convictions. He has also adapted to these playoffs during the running. The kinks are still in combination, with Thibodeau being the leading on the sidelines.

“You do what your team gives the best chance to win,” said Thibodeau. “I always say that they run their own races. What does their experience teach them?

During the post -season, a lot was talked about the mental strength of the Knicks. It is physical toughness. The size of Jalen Brunson. All of these things are true. However, New York is not in this position without a coach’s basketball player.

The national perception of Thibodeau is that it does not experiment enough.

That he keeps things the same and hopes for the best.

“It is his way or the highway,” some could say.

However, these playoffs showed us that this is not exactly right.

For the beginning, part of New York’s success against Boston was due to his game plan to change more than ever in the regular season. Thibodeau trust trust in Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns-the defenders of the starting line-up-to proudly compete for this end, and both delivered.

During the regular season there were 34 games in which cities had never changed pick-and-roll reporting per second. In addition, he never changed more than four times in one game during the regular season. In five of the six games against Boston, the cities in the pick-and-roll reporting changed over five times, including 13 times in game 1 and 14 times in game 4. The ability of the cities to stay in front of Jayson, and Jaylen Brown paid for the kinks when the Boston stars often lay against the disturbing jumers over the big man.

Part of the decision to change the cities more in the post -season than in the regular season was trust. The cities seem to be preferred to play in a drop. In addition, with this reporting in the late season of the last year as a member of the Timberwolves, the cities had some successes, and this may have played a role in the Knicks trainers who trust in cities to carry them out for them.

(Brad Penner / Imagn Bild)

As far as Brunson is concerned, he only changed 26.8 percent of the cases, while defending the rear ends of pick-and-rolls, per second, during the regular season. During the series against the Celtics, Brunson changed 43.1 percent of the pick-and-rolls he defended in Boston. There were moments when Brunson like cities of Boston’s stars forced into hard jumping shots that got the reigning champion cold in games late.

On the other side of the soil, Thibodeau leaned as the initiator of the crime in Mikal Bridges when Brunson sat down. The bridges per second spectrum were 9.2 pick-and-rolls per 100 possessions during the regular season. Bridges ran 13.2 pick-and-rolls per 100 possessions against Boston. In the first round against the pistons, Bridges ran 11.8 pick-and rolls per 100 possessions. This paid off the most for the Knicks in the fourth quarter of game 4 when Bridges scored 10 of his 23 points in the last framework.

Regardless of whether this tactic was held for the post -season or recognized that it was the best procedure at that moment, Thibodeau has brought out the best of its players, and it contributed to driving the franchise for its first finals of the Eastern Conference for 25 years.

“As soon as you have a label, it is difficult to lose this label,” said Josh Hart about misunderstandings about Thibodeau. “I think this whole … These two series, he has shown that he is ready to adapt. He has shown that he is ready to change. He has shown that he is ready to do different things than he is used to.

“Everyone gives them a label and they run with this label in the last 10 or 15 years. I think the last two series have shown their ability to adapt and change if necessary.”

Most people now know that Thibodeau has skipped a family life to concentrate on coaching. He loves and respects the coaching so much that despite his Curmudgeon behavior, he has never been ejected on the sidelines. This is what he was born for, or at least as he wants to remember his time on earth.

This commitment is estimated by most players who play for him and those who have violated him.

“I’m happy about Thibs,” said Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla after the series. “He has trained for a long time. For me it is the greatest. You pay your contributions, you have produced everything … This guy is a lifer, man. He is everything that is about a trainer and he deserves it.”

If things go on in favor of the Knicks, the franchise franchise company could not only end a 50-year-old championship dice, but also Thibodeau, a man who has put everything in the direction of his profession, could get this difficult title as head coach.

At that time it will be just as difficult to get rid of the Knicks as to get rid of Thibodeau. This is no coincidence.

“There are many misunderstandings about everyone,” said Brunson, “and that’s okay.”

(Topto by Thibodeau: Luke Hales / Getty Images)