You might think that Tom Thibodeau would be tempted to take full advantage of a game like the one the Knicks played on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, a game in which they ended the first half with 20 and halfway through the third half. led by 30. quarter, a game that might have been governed by grace if such legislation existed.
You might think that the Knicks coach, who sees his team play so many close games, demanding maximum effort every minute, could see a game like this 131-113 breeze over the Wizards as an opportunity to see guys like Julius Randle. to give. and RJ Barrett the equivalent of some down time, let the walk-ons play, maybe sit by himself, take a deep breath or three, chill.
You could …
Um … never mind. It’s hard to type all that with a straight face. We’ve seen Thibodeau’s work from a distance for ten years and now for 44 games up close, which is more than enough to understand that this is part of the Thibodeau tapestry. There are no free evenings. There are no possessions finished. There is no time for waste. Not by choice.
“We aim to be a 48-minute team,” Thibodeau said when Washington’s beating was complete, taking that sentence just as seriously as a tax audit.
He leans on the guys he trusts, asks them to lean on each other, demands that they run through the tape even if the other guy waves a white flag (neither Russell Westbrook nor Bradley Beal played a second of the fourth quarter for the Wizards). It sometimes drives social media’s cognoscenti to distraction, but that’s who he is. That’s always been who he is.
That’s how he coaches. And when a coach does as much good as Thibodeau – and it’s hard to remember a Knicks coach, even Pat Riley, who had such a big impact in his first 44 games on the track – you accept the quirks that come with it .
He wouldn’t call them idiosyncrasies, of course.
He would call them standards.
“You want to learn,” said Thibodeau, “and with every game you learn things, you show what you are doing well and not as well as you would like. What we do every day is focus on doing our best at the end and you need everyone to buy in, sacrifice for the team, put the team first. You look back and you have made a huge leap forward. “
Perhaps the circumference of Thibodeau’s circle of confidence is not very wide, but he is willing to grow it. Jimmy Butler barely played his rookie year. Young players like Joakim Noah and Luol Deng – and most recently Barrett – have developed significantly during his watch. If possible, he prefers to work out the kinks of that development in practice than games.
So there are no sympathy minutes for Kevin Knox or Obi Toppin. There are no quarters available for Randle or Barrett. It’s like he’s channeling Frank Galvin from “The Verdict”:
“There are no other cases, this is the case.”
There are no other games. This is the game.
“There are so many different aspects you are working on,” he said. “How to start a game. How to close quarters. How to finish the game. Don’t skip things. Everything is important: practice, focus on team meetings, schedules … “
Yes. When you hire Thibodeau, you hire all of Thibodeau. You hire a coach who believes what he believes, even if he knows better than anyone that he lost his best shot at a title in 2012 when Derrick Rose hurt his knee after a playoff win over the Sixers had already been cast off.
The funny thing is, Rose has never questioned whether Thibodeau had endangered his career by keeping him in a safe game, and basically follows him all over the competition like Deadheads followed Jerry Garcia. If you live, thrive in Thibodeau’s circle of confidence, you tend to view the game through the same prism.
Of course you keep working until the last buzzer. Of course you keep playing until the end. Of course you ignore the minute police. There is no other way. This is the way.