You might think that Tom Thibodeau would be tempted to get the most out of a game like the one the Knicks played on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, a game in which they led by 20 at the end of the first half and by 30 in the middle of the third quarter, a game that could have been governed by mercy if such legislation existed.
You might think that the Knicks coach, who sees his team playing so many games played, that requires maximum effort every minute of those games, can see a game like this 131-113 breeze over the Wizards as an opportunity to come face to face. like Julius Randle and RJ Barrett, the equivalent of some rest time, let the walk-ons play, maybe sit down, take a deep breath or three, relax.
You may …
Um … never mind. It is difficult to type any of these things with a straight face. We have seen Thibodeau’s work from a distance for a decade and up close there are 44 games now, which is more than enough to understand that this is part of Thibodeau’s tapestry. There are no nights off. There are no possessions outside. There is no trash time. Not by choice.
“We are striving to be a 48-minute team,” said Thibodeau when the beating in Washington ended, and he takes that phrase as seriously as a tax audit.
He relies on the guys he trusts, asks them to lean on each other, demands that they run the tape, even if the other guy waves a white flag (neither Russel Westbrook nor Bradley Beal played a second in the fourth half for the Wizards) Sometimes it takes social media connoisseurs to distraction, but it is just like that. He’s always been like that.
That’s how he trains. And when a coach does as well as Thibodeau – and it’s hard to remember a Knicks coach, even Pat Riley, who had such a profound impact on his first 44 games at work – you accept the quirks that come with it.
He would not call them peculiarities, of course.
He called them patterns.
“You want to learn,” said Thibodeau, “and all games will teach you things, show you the things you are doing well and not as well as you would like. What we are doing every day is to focus on playing our best in the end and you need everyone to agree, sacrificing yourself for the team, putting the team first. You look back and take a quantum leap. “
Perhaps the circumference of Thibodeau’s circle of trust is not very large, but he is willing to increase it. Jimmy Butler hardly played his debut year. Young players like Joakim Noah and Luol Deng – and, recently, Barrett – have developed significantly under his command. He just prefers to work out the twists of this development in practice, if possible, than in games.
So there are no sympathetic minutes for Kevin Knox or Obi Toppin. There are no quarters for Randle or Barrett. It is as if he channeled Frank Galvin from “The Verdict”:
“There are no other cases, that is the case.”
There are no other games. This is the game.
“There are so many different aspects that you work on,” he said. “How do you start a game. How do you close the quarters. How do you end the game. Don’t skip things. Everything matters: practice, concentration in team meetings, schemes … ”
yea. When you hire Thibodeau, you hire all of Thibodeau. You hire a coach who believes what you believe, even though you know better than anyone who missed his best shot at the title in 2012, when Derrick Rose injured his knee after a playoff victory over the Sixers.
The funny thing is that Rose never questioned whether Thibodeau had put his career at risk by keeping him in a safe game and, in fact, follows him through the league as the Deadheads used to follow Jerry Garcia. If you exist in Thibodeau’s circle of trust, prosper in it, you tend to see the game through the same lens.
Of course, you keep working until the final bell. Of course, you keep playing until the end. Of course you ignore the Minute Police. There is no other way. This is the way.