Thibodeau, Tom

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    The Knicks’ Struggles Go Deeper Than Kemba Walker

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    A surprising reconsideration of the lineup that pushed Walker out of the rotation could help with some of the team’s issues, but not all of them.Knicks Coach Tom Thibodeau has long been known as resistant to change, particularly in the way he uses his starters. He’s often been criticized for playing them for too many minutes, rain or shine, whether or not they are performing well.So it was surprising this week, a quarter of a way through the season, when Thibodeau said that he was pulling the plug on Kemba Walker as the starting point guard in favor of Alec Burks, a reserve for most of his career and not a traditional point guard. And it wasn’t just that Walker, a four-time All-Star who signed with the Knicks in the summer, was being yanked from the lineup. Thibodeau told reporters that Walker would be out of the rotation entirely.Changing a starter this early in the season is significant, particularly when it’s one with Walker’s résumé. At 31, Walker, in theory, should still be in his athletic prime.But Thibodeau was trying to correct for an urgent, and frequent, problem: Knicks starters putting the team in a hole that the bench has to dig it out of. If playoff teams are consistently hurt by any part of their roster, it’s usually a thin bench. But for the Knicks, the starters — even beyond Walker — are the reason they are a fringe playoff team instead of near the top of the Eastern Conference standings.Tuesday night’s game against the Nets was illustrative. Down 1 point at halftime, the Nets came out of the break with a blistering 14-0 run against the Knicks’ starters minus guard RJ Barrett, who missed the second half with an unspecified illness. The starters climbed back into the game and briefly took the lead. But the Knicks lost the 112-110 thriller in Brooklyn — in part because coming out of halftime flat left the team playing the Nets (15-6) from behind for most of the second half.Julius Randle regularly draws multiple defenders.Michelle Farsi/Getty ImagesThis wasn’t an exception. In a Nov. 10 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, the reigning champions, the Knicks went down double digits in the first quarter. Even against the Houston Rockets, one of the worst teams in the N.B.A., the Knicks fell behind 18-11 in the first quarter before tying the game by halftime and winning. The next night, Nov. 21, against Chicago, the Bulls raced out to a 20-8 start en route to victory.The starting lineup the Knicks (11-10) have played for much of the season — Walker, Barrett, Evan Fournier, Julius Randle and Mitchell Robinson — hasn’t just struggled. Its net rating — a measure of how much better or worse a team or group is than their opponents — is negative 15.7, according to the league’s tracking numbers. That places this unit among the worst starting or bench lineups in the N.B.A.The evidence was becoming undeniable. Thibodeau needed to try something else.Walker wasn’t the sole issue, but he was a big part of the problem. He’s averaging 11.7 points per game on 42.9 percent shooting from the field, and an excellent 41.3 percent from 3-point range. But Walker’s play took a nosedive in November after a hot start. In 12 games last month, Walker shot only 29.6 percent from deep. If his 3s aren’t falling, there isn’t much else he’s doing on the court.Because of chronic knee issues in recent years, Walker has lost his explosive first step, so he’s not able to get to the rim as effectively. And because of his height — Walker is listed at 6 feet tall — and slower foot speed, Walker was targeted on defense. The only way to justify keeping him on the court would be if he spread the floor with his shooting, and he is no longer doing that.Inserting Burks into the starting lineup for Walker makes some things easier for the Knicks. He’s bigger — listed at 6-foot-6 — which makes him a more versatile defender. On Tuesday night, he was just as likely to guard the 6-foot-5 James Harden as the quick rookie guard Cameron Thomas, who is 6-foot-3. Early in the third quarter, Burks blocked a Patty Mills 3-pointer — easier for him than for Walker.“You’re able to switch 1 through 4,” Derrick Rose, the Knicks reserve guard, said of Burks’s insertion into the lineup. “You’re more versatile. I mean, A.B. is a hell of a player. A playmaker. A great shooter.”But Burks doesn’t fully solve a starting lineup problem that led Thibodeau to increasingly rely on the bench late in games. The Knicks don’t have much of a fast-break offense and often depend on isolations to get their points — which would be fine if their shooters did more work on their own to get open rather than just standing still. The team is near the top of the league in contested shots and toward the bottom in wide-open ones.Fournier’s stats dipped in November like Walker’s did, causing Thibodeau to barely use him in key moments late in games. Thibodeau did call his number on Tuesday night against the Nets, and Fournier rewarded him by hitting a game-tying 3-pointer with 18 seconds left. But overall, Fournier shot 5 for 12 for 13 points in 22 minutes, with no rebounds or assists. Like with Walker, if Fournier isn’t consistently a 3-point threat, there’s little reason for him to be on the floor.Randle, the team’s best player, has faced an onslaught of double teams without reliable shooting around him, and he has struggled. Randle is shooting only 41.7 percent from the field and 32.5 percent from 3 — all below his career averages. All of Barrett’s numbers have declined from last year as well. Barrett has improved his finishing around the rim, but his shooting has always been his biggest question mark, one he appeared to answer last year when he shot 40.1 percent from deep. Now he’s at 32.1 percent. (For his part, Barrett also started slowly last year, only to pick it up in the second half of the season.)Thibodeau was not in the mood to discuss the lineup change after Tuesday’s loss. Asked about it, Thibodeau expressed anger at the game’s officiating and then left the news conference after just one question.The saving grace for the Knicks has been their bench trio of Rose, Obi Toppin and Immanuel Quickley. The team is third in the N.B.A. in bench scoring. Toppin is a sorely needed threat at the rim and in transition and does something the Knicks generally don’t do well: cut. Quickley and Rose have provided quality shooting, especially late in games, and Rose has been one of the few Knicks effective at getting to the rim.Swapping Walker for Burks swap has already paid dividends. He scored 25 and 23 points in the last two games, his only two starts of the season. And the Knicks may need to make more adjustments. More lineup changes mean the increased potential for hurt feelings among veteran players, but as Thibodeau said before the game on Tuesday: “You have to put winning first.” More

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      Why Are the Knicks Struggling on Defense?

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      One of the N.B.A.’s best defenses last season, the Knicks now are one of the worst at stopping 3-point shooters. Opposing guards are having career nights.Derrick Rose, the Knicks’ speedy reserve guard, poked loose what should have been a routine end-of-the-quarter possession by the Milwaukee Bucks, then dashed the other way with the ball for a last-second layup.Rose’s crafty defensive play cut the Milwaukee lead to 16 at the end of the third quarter on Wednesday, and spurred the Knicks’ bench to begin swarming the Bucks on every possession. Soon, the Knicks were in the midst of a rousing comeback, tying the game in the fourth quarter after being 24 points down in the third.Rose’s steal was emblematic of last year’s Knicks team: high-energy, displaying active hands and making nothing easy for the opposing team.Except the Knicks couldn’t stop the 3-point shooting of Bucks guard Pat Connaughton, who hit four 3-pointers in the final quarter to keep the Knicks at bay. It was emblematic of this year’s Knicks team: unable to sustain defensive effort and punished from the perimeter by a hot-shooting guard.The Knicks have made a habit of giving up big offensive nights to guards this season. On Wednesday, Connaughton hit seven 3s off the bench for 23 points, the most he’d scored in a game since Oct. 18, 2017. In the Knicks’ season opener last month, Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics went off for a career-high 46 points. The most surprising opponent performance of the year has been from Ricky Rubio, the backup point guard for the Cleveland Cavaliers, who scored 37 points off the bench on Sunday. Rubio hit eight of his nine 3s — this after being a poor shooter for most of his career. There was also the 36-point explosion from Toronto’s OG Anunoby earlier this month. Brown, Rubio and Anunoby’s performances were all career highs.Cleveland Cavaliers guard Ricky Rubio hit 8 of 9 3-pointers against the Knicks, despite averaging less than one make per game over his career.Noah K. Murray/Associated PressAfter a fast 5-1 start, the Knicks have come back down to earth, going 2-4 in their last six games. The slide has been primarily because of their defense. It’s the opposite problem of last year: They’ve scored at least 100 points in all but one game, and they are ranked fifth in the N.B.A. in offense. After Wednesday’s loss to the Bucks, the Knicks were the league’s 26th best team on defense — also known as its fifth worst. It’s a stark change from last year, when the Knicks were the fourth best defensive team.The biggest shift has been in guarding the 3-point shot. Last season, the Knicks led the league in opponent 3-point percentage, meaning there was no team against whom it was more difficult to score from outside the perimeter. Now the Knicks are 26th.The Knicks are also surrendering 41.7 deep shots a game — the most in the league. Last year, they were below league average, in the bottom 10. So the team is giving up more shots from 3 and has become worse at defending them, much to the chagrin of Coach Tom Thibodeau. The Bucks made 26 3-pointers against the Knicks, the most ever made against the team in franchise history.When asked Wednesday about the kinds of 3-point shots that opposing offenses are getting against his team, Thibodeau was brusque: “Well, we don’t want to give up any shots.”Thibodeau’s irritation is understandable. In a decades-long coaching career, Thibodeau’s defensive acumen has become his signature. During the 2007-8 season, he was the architect of the Celtics defense that won a championship. The defense was so good that Celtics power forward Kevin Garnett won the Defensive Player of the Year Award that season. In Thibodeau’s five seasons as head coach of the Chicago Bulls, the team led the league in defense twice and never finished lower than 11th. But in Minnesota, where Thibodeau spent two and a half seasons, the Timberwolves were one of the worst defensive teams in the league each season.What’s odd about this current defensive spell is that the Knicks brought back most of their players from last year, when they were strong defensively. Plus, Mitchell Robinson, one of the league’s best rim protectors, missed most of last season but is healthy and starting.The biggest change in the lineup has been the new starting backcourt of Kemba Walker and Evan Fournier, who are not known for their defense but have added some much-needed shooting punch.Opposing guards are finding it easier to get by the Knicks’ starting guards and into the paint, especially off screen-and-rolls. This forces the Knicks’ interior defenders, like Robinson and Julius Randle, or Knicks guards to rotate over and help, allowing for open shots on the perimeter. Rubio, in particular, took advantage of this. When help wouldn’t come fast enough, he would take an open 3. If it did come, he used his foot speed to get around the defense and find easy looks for others.Milwaukee’s Jrue Holiday and Giannis Antetokounmpo often were able to break down the Knicks’ perimeter defenses.“I really can’t put a finger it,” Rose said. “I think it came from us not making shots on the other end then them putting pressure on us by using Giannis and Jrue in pick-and-roll to swing the ball to the corners. I think they hit like three straight 3s in the corner. They were just trying to expose us in different ways to make us help or over-help and spray out for 3s.”In one sequence, RJ Barrett missed a layup and the Bucks immediately rebounded and ran the other way. Walker did not pick up Bucks guard Grayson Allen fast enough in transition. Allen didn’t have to work hard to get open and hit a 3 with Walker at least three feet away from him. Walker didn’t put a hand up.On the Bucks’ next score, Fournier was swallowed up by an Antetokounmpo screen, forcing Robinson to come help, leaving Bucks forward Bobby Portis open for 3.Toronto’s OG Anunoby went off against the Knicks for 36 points, hitting 48.1 percent of his shots, including four 3-pointers.Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThese aren’t aberrations. There are other defensive issues for the Knicks that go beyond giving up jumpers. They have been below league average in giving up fast-break points. Last year, they were second. This is particularly problematic because the Knicks are playing at a slightly faster pace than they were last year, creating more opportunities for opponents to get out and run.When the Celtics came to town, Brown routinely picked on Fournier, either in transition or when getting easily by him off screens. Often, Fournier would concede Brown’s shots rather than aggressively defend him, especially beyond the arc. Brown hit eight 3s in that game.To add to their woes, the Knicks are taking more 3s than last season, but hitting them at a lower percentage. Missed jumpers often lead to long rebounds and make it easier for teams to start fast breaks.The Knicks’ bench also has been defending better than the starters, generally, judging by defensive rating — a measure of how many points a team gives up per 100 possessions with those players on the court.The good news is that this is all reversible. A team doesn’t forget how to play defense over one off-season and 12 games aren’t much to go on. And as the Knicks showed in the fourth quarter on Wednesday night, the team is capable of playing the stifling defense that became its identity last year. The chief problems the team has to solve are how to handle screeners and how to more aggressively chase open shooters. More effort will help, as Thibodeau has said.But Thibodeau wants to solve the problem immediately, even if some may think the Knicks have played too few games to fret just yet.“When it’s 10 games, you say you need 20. And when you get to 20, you say 30. And then once you get to 30, you say 40. And then before you know it, the season’s over,” Thibodeau said, referring to the concept with an unprintable word. More

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      The Knicks Are Ready for a Sequel. The Good Kind.

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      What is this feeling, so sudden and new?A surprisingly successful run last season helped the Knicks recapture the city’s imagination, much like the team had done in 1990s New York. That era of Knicks basketball is so beloved that it has spawned documentaries, books and endless nostalgia, even though it ended without a championship. The heydays of Patrick Ewing, John Starks and Latrell Sprewell re-established the team as a marquee franchise, a luster that has eroded over the last two decades of mostly despair for the tortured fan base.“After so many years of the Knickerbockers being an accident waiting to happen, you didn’t really watch them — you rubbernecked them, like you would a fender bender on the West Side Highway,” said Steve Somers, the popular radio host for WFAN. “Now, the Knickerbockers are generating some new, reborn excitement and enthusiasm.”These Knicks will attempt to build on last year’s success as they begin the season at home against the Boston Celtics on Wednesday. They’ll likely be one of two types of follow-ups: ideally, “The Godfather: Part II” — a quality sequel that builds on the original — or “The Godfather: Part III” — a rudderless ship.“It’s certainly not easy to do one year, but the second year is where that work ethic, the culture comes into place,” said Chris Dudley, who was a reserve center for the Knicks from 1997 to 2000. “Because too often you see teams have a great year and then they kind of forget a little bit how hard it was to get there and they slide back.”But if there’s one person intimately familiar with trying to sustain great play in New York, it is the man shepherding this iteration of Knicks basketball and restoring the franchise to the glory days Dudley saw up close.“There’s a strong connection from this Knicks team to when I played there in Tom Thibodeau,” Dudley said, referring to the Knicks head coach. “He fit right into that mentality of: ‘Hey, we’ve got a job to do. Let’s get it done.’ That’s the work ethic, the culture.”Thibodeau was an assistant coach for the Knicks from 1996 to 2003, meaning that as he reveled in the rise of an empire he also felt the embers when it began to crash and burn. In his first season as head coach last year, Thibodeau lifted the Knicks’ defense to fourth in the league from 23rd. The Knicks opted for a more physical style rather than finesse — a Thibodeau staple, and one Knicks fans grew to appreciate both last year and when it came from the sharp elbows of Anthony Mason and Charles Oakley in the 1990s.“Culture” for a team is, as the typically no-nonsense Thibodeau noted to reporters after a preseason practice, an ambiguous buzzword. Whatever the best word is, the Knicks have begun to shift the narrative about themselves in relatively short order after decades of futility.They have a young star in Julius Randle, a budding star in RJ Barrett, and dynamic up-and-comers in Immanuel Quickley and Obi Toppin. This off-season, the Knicks signed quality veterans in Kemba Walker and Evan Fournier to bolster their stable of experienced role players, like Taj Gibson and Alec Burks.Kemba Walker, left, and Evan Fournier, center, should relieve some of the offensive pressure on Julius Randle, right.Adam Hunger/Associated Press“What is culture? Culture is what you do every day,” Thibodeau said. “It’s not any one particular thing. It’s how you approach everything. Draft. Free agency. Trades. Player development. Practice. Travel. Summer program. It’s not blitzing the pick-and-roll.”Toppin is entering his second season as the rare Knick who has only known playing for a winning version of the team. “Our culture is competing every single day to help the next person,” Toppin said. “White Team is helping Blue Team. Blue Team is helping Green Team. Everybody is helping each other in practice so that, when it comes to the game, everyone is ready.”There is an organizational cohesiveness — at least outwardly — that was lacking before Thibodeau and Leon Rose, the team president since March 2020, took the lead.“It just goes to show you when you put direction in, and then you get a quality coach that stresses defense and unselfishness, those are things that help get wins,” said Rick Brunson, who appeared in 69 games for the Knicks between 1998 and 2001. “And then you put a product out there, it becomes magical.”James L. Dolan, the team’s mercurial owner with a reputation for impulsive and often detrimental meddling, has mostly stayed out of the limelight. Thibodeau said Dolan “has given us everything we’ve asked for.”Among the moves the Knicks made this summer: signing Randle to a long-term extension instead of letting a looming free agency saga play out, and inking Walker to a bargain deal after the Oklahoma City Thunder bought him out. The last time the Knicks had a young All-Star to build around in Kristaps Porzingis, they unexpectedly traded him in 2019 for a return that, even at the time, seemed paltry. None of the players the Knicks acquired in that deal are still with the team.Now the Knicks have a new challenge: to prove they’re not a fluke.“Consistency and sustaining what made you win in the first place is always a challenge,” said Stan Van Gundy, a TNT analyst who has coached four N.B.A. teams. His brother, Jeff, was the coach of the Knicks when they last made the finals, in 1999. “But I think the way it needs to be done, and certainly the way Tom will do it, is you continue to do all of those things that got you there in the first place.”There are plenty of reasons to believe the Knicks’ ceiling is even higher this season: They’ve given Randle more offensive weapons (Walker, Fournier) to take the pressure off him after the team struggled on that end last year. Mitchell Robinson, the 23-year-old center, will, if healthy, add another dimension as a shot blocking rim-runner, which the Knicks missed in the playoffs against the Atlanta Hawks. And with two other Eastern Conference contending teams in flux as a result of a possible trade (Ben Simmons and the Philadelphia 76ers) or an unvaccinated player (the Nets’ Kyrie Irving), there is a real opportunity for the Knicks to level up.Still, as Ernie Grunfeld, the architect of the Knicks throughout most of the 1990s, can attest, “You need to win.”“New York is about winning. And they’re doing that,” he added, “New York wants a team that plays hard and leaves everything out on the floor and plays together and plays basketball the right way.”That’s what his Dot Com Bubble-era Knicks teams gave the crowds at Madison Square Garden, he said.“It was electric. It was a great place to be,” Grunfeld said. “We were competitive every night. We were a team that other teams feared playing against. They were celebrities everywhere. It was a happening place in New York at the time.”As much as many N.B.A. observers pay tribute to the blue-collar persona of Thibodeau’s teams, his coaching record is more complicated. He’s had a history of quickly wearing out his welcome and not being able to build off success.Knicks Coach Tom Thibodeau had success in his first season, but he quickly wore out his welcome in past coaching forays.Frank Franklin II/Associated PressThibodeau led a resurrection in 2010-11 in his first year as a head coach of the Chicago Bulls. They had the best record in the N.B.A. (62-20) but lost to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals in five games. It ended up being the only time the team advanced past the second round in five seasons under Thibodeau. While it was the second most successful stretch in Bulls history, it was marred by injuries and Thibodeau’s clashes with the front office.Then came a roller-coaster tenure in Minnesota, during which Jimmy Butler, then the team’s best player, became alienated and demanded to be traded. Thibodeau was sent packing in the middle of his third season. A common criticism in both locations was that Thibodeau’s gruff style grated on players and management alike and that he tended to overplay his stars, leaving them tired down the stretch. Last year, Randle was No. 1 in the league in minutes played. Old habits die hard.So do old reputations.The burst of optimism surrounding this team echoes that of the 2012-13 Knicks led by Carmelo Anthony, who finished the regular season with a 54-28 record and won a playoff series. In the off-season afterward, their biggest move was trading for Andrea Bargnani, who played poorly, and the Knicks missed the playoffs. Phil Jackson took over the team the next year, ushering in a new period of inefficacy for the team.The current Knicks seem different. There is, for now, front office and roster continuity. The off-season didn’t feature any impulsive trades or long-term contracts for past-their-prime players that would limit cap flexibility. Players like Toppin are showing real development, as was indicated in the Knicks’ preseason opener when he showed off his ball handling. The Knicks should be better.But if they’re not? If last season was a flash in the pan — a Penn Station-size tease — the path forward for the Knicks becomes much murkier. More

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      The Knicks May Not Be Dreaming Big Enough

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      The Knicks had a good season — but good enough to just run it back? It doesn’t seem like it, and yet that appears to be their strategy.Imagine you own a brand-name company with a beloved product. For decades, because of poor design decisions, the company has released versions of the product that have gone over poorly with customers — think Coca-Cola Bacon. But you put a new leadership team in place. More

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      The Knicks Enter a Summer of Tough Calls

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      Their transformation into a playoff team was one of the more remarkable stories of the season. But keeping the momentum going will require some more good calls.As the dejected Knicks wound down the closing minute of their season on Wednesday night, the near-capacity crowd at Madison Square Garden rained cheers on them.It didn’t seem to matter that the Knicks had been thumped once again by the Atlanta Hawks, or that they had lost their first playoff series since 2013 in a surprisingly noncompetitive fashion, four games to one. It didn’t seem to matter to the fans that one of the best defenses in the league was carved up by Trae Young, or that much of this team is unlikely to be back next season, since many are set to be free agents.Asked what the biggest difference was between this season and last, RJ Barrett, the Knicks guard, put it succinctly: “A lot more winning. Winning was fun.”This team’s overnight turnaround from 21-45 to 41-31 was one of the more remarkable stories of a turbulent N.B.A. season. And even though the Knicks collapsed in the playoffs, raising some new questions entering the off-season, this iteration was one that their fans could enjoy watching again. In the 21st century, that was something Knicks aficionados could only rarely say.The Knicks team that made the playoffs could be headed for a makeover.Dale Zanine/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“I’m proud of what our team accomplished this year,” Knicks Coach Tom Thibodeau said. “Obviously, disappointed with the result tonight, and hopefully we can learn and get better from it. But I thought our guys gave us everything they had all year long.”The Knicks confounded preseason expectations by earning the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference after many observers wrote them off even before the season began. But it wasn’t just that they won more games this season. It was the way they did it.The Knicks were rarely the most talented team on the floor. They won on the back of a tough defense and cast of scrappy players who reflected their coach, Thibodeau. Their best player, Julius Randle, had been underwhelming a year ago, renewing questions about whether the three-year, $63 million contract he had received in 2019 was just the latest in a long line of ill-fated Knicks signings.Instead, the 6-foot-8, 250-pound Randle reinvented his game under Thibodeau and adapted to the modern N.B.A.: He developed his 3-point shot while also improving his passing and defense. Doubts about Randle faded as he morphed into an All Star.“We’re bringing a brand of basketball back that the city can be proud of,” Randle said, adding, “We have something to build on for the future.”That is the most important takeaway from this season. The Knicks are a coveted ticket again, which means they may be more successful at attracting top free agents, a task at which the team has struggled for most of the last two decades. That change in perception alone could make this season a success, regardless of how the series against the Hawks ended.The Knicks finally have something they have craved for years: They have built the ground floor of something. Under the team president Leon Rose and the coaching of Thibodeau, there appears to be an organizational direction and a sincere — at least, for now — commitment to long-term development over short-term thinking. There are promising young players like Immanuel Quickley and Obi Toppin. There are building blocks like Barrett and Randle. The Knicks also have multiple first-round picks in this year’s draft.And, because of a handful of expiring contracts, the Knicks will have a great deal of cap flexibility. Several of this year’s Knicks, including Derrick Rose, Alec Burks, Nerlens Noel, Reggie Bullock and Elfrid Payton, will be free agents this summer — the result of a strategy in recent years to stack their rosters with short-term contracts.To be sure, the Knicks have some important decisions to make. In many ways, the season that just ended was supposed to have been a bridge year. Instead, the team overachieved by making the playoffs, and then underachieved once it got there.One of the first big calls will be deciding what to do about Randle, who turns 27 in November. As strong as he was in the regular season, Randle was abysmal against the Hawks in his first postseason, shooting 29.7 percent. This was his seventh N.B.A. season, but which is the real Randle: the one who grew into an All-Star during the season, or the one who vanished against the Hawks? And what now?The Knicks must decide whether to tie up a large portion of their salary budget with a long-term extension for Randle and build the team around him, or to sell high as they did with Kristaps Porzingis, the last Knicks All-Star who excited the fan base.It was a promising season for Knicks fans.Wendell Cruz/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“I told him I still do believe in him,” guard Derrick Rose said. “I’m going to ride with him to the end just like everybody on the team. Like, he got us here.”The calculations only get more complicated from there. Should the Knicks give Mitchell Robinson, their shot-blocking center, an enormous extension, or go shopping in a thin free-agent year? DeMar DeRozan, who just finished a successful run with the San Antonio Spurs, and Kyle Lowry of the Toronto Raptors are two players who do seem to fit the Thibodeau mold. Kawhi Leonard of the Los Angeles Clippers could opt for free agency if the Clippers lose to the Dallas Mavericks in the first round.Committing lots of money to the wrong players, though, is the surest way for a team to keep itself in N.B.A. purgatory, a fact that Knicks fans know as well as anyone. Draft picks can be squandered. Signings can go wrong. Injuries might derail a run.But those worries can wait a day or two. For the moment, this season can be viewed as a refreshing change in direction for the Knicks. For most franchises, making the playoffs would be a small step. For the Knicks, it was a giant leap. They are back in the discussion.“Who wouldn’t want to play for the Knicks or be in New York?” Rose said Wednesday night.When was the last time the Knicks, or their fans, could say that and mean it? More

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      Derrick Rose Leads Knicks Past Hawks in Game 2

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      The Knicks head to Atlanta tied with the Hawks, 1-1, thanks to a halftime switch and 26 points from Derrick Rose.Knicks Coach Tom Thibodeau, known for his rigidity, had to change something.The Knicks’ starters had been listless in the first half of Game 2 of their first-round N.B.A. playoff series against the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday. The starting five had combined to hit only four field goals in the first two quarters. Thibodeau had benched his point guard, but the Knicks still trailed by 13 points at halftime. Madison Square Garden, packed with fans again, was restless.So Thibodeau pulled out a surprise, something he is typically hesitant to do. He opened the second half with two lineup changes, sending out Derrick Rose and Taj Gibson, both of whom had kept the Knicks in the game to that point.The move changed everything: The Knicks went from 13 points behind to holding a 1-point lead entering the fourth quarter. The crowd was revived. So was the team, which pulled away to beat the Hawks, 101-92.The victory was the Knicks’ first playoff win since 2013, and tied the series at 1-1. Game 3 of the best-of-seven series is Friday night in Atlanta.“We just felt like we were flat and needed a jolt of energy,” Thibodeau said after the game. “We wanted to change it up and we got going. It started with the defense, then we started sharing the ball.”The Garden was full for Game 2.Elsa/USA Today Sports, via ReutersWhat was notable about Thibodeau’s turning to Rose and Gibson was that they are the two players with whom Thibodeau has the most experience, making Wednesday’s midgame switch less an adjustment than a revival. Rose, 32, and Gibson, 35, have played for Thibodeau on three different teams he has coached: the Chicago Bulls, the Minnesota Timberwolves and now, the Knicks.Rose and Gibson were key parts of Thibodeau’s most successful team: the 2010-11 Chicago Bulls, who went to the Eastern Conference finals. Each player has a different, lesser role on Thibodeau’s current team, but his trust in them has never faltered.The five players he sent out for the second half on Wednesday night — RJ Barrett, Julius Randle, Rose, Gibson and Reggie Bullock — were not a makeshift group; they were, in fact, the Knicks’ fifth-most-used lineup during the regular season, according to the N.B.A.’s tracking numbers. They were extremely successful in 109 total minutes, with a net rating of 14.4 (a measure of how much a team is outscoring the other team or being outscored).“Regardless of who was out there, I think us, as a team, we came out with a different intensity level and focus and we were able to make them uncomfortable,” Randle said.Randle finished with 15 points on 5-of-16 shooting, adding 12 rebounds and four assists. But in the first half, the Hawks once again flummoxed him with double teams, a repeat of Game 1, and he could not hit his jumpers. Randle’s teammates did not make shots off his passes, either, allowing Atlanta to make its double teams even more aggressive. In the game-changing third quarter, with Rose on the floor as another playmaker, Randle had more room to operate: He scored 11 points, including two 3-pointers, which helped turn the tide.Rose finished with 26 points in 39 minutes, while Gibson had 6 points and 7 rebounds in 30 minutes. But it was Gibson’s defense in the paint that helped limit the effectiveness of the Hawks star Trae Young, who had hit the game-winning shot in Game 1 and hushed the Garden crowd.That is not to say Young didn’t give the Knicks fits again. He finished with 30 points on 20 shots, often leaving his primary defender, Rose, in the dust. But this time it was Rose, and the Knicks, who got the last word. As the final seconds ticked off, Rose dropped the basketball and aggressively clapped his hands.“To get that far and play the way that we played, to come back and get the lead, and not only that, but to win, it shows a lot,” Rose said. “It shows fight.”Inserting Gibson and Rose into the lineup after halftime was not Thibodeau’s only tweak. Elfrid Payton, a starting guard, played only the first five minutes of the game and, after being replaced by Rose, did not return. For months, Payton had been a prime example of Thibodeau’s unwillingness to bend: He has largely been ineffective as a player since March, but he never received less than 12 minutes the entire regular season, and averaged 24 minutes overall. Now, he might be out of the rotation altogether.Thibodeau also gave his bench, which has been a pleasant surprise, more leeway on the court than he typically does. The Knicks began the fourth quarter with Obi Toppin, Nerlens Noel, Immanuel Quickley, Alec Burks and Bullock on the floor. And at a crucial juncture in the game, with minimal playmaking on the floor, that group extended the Knicks’ lead to 10.And Barrett, who averaged 34.9 minutes a game during the regular season, sat out the entire fourth quarter. Instead, Thibodeau’s final adjustment was his closing lineup of Rose, Burks, Bullock, Randle and Gibson, a five the Knicks had not tried all season. It worked, particularly defensively, as they forced the ball out of Young’s hands.Trae Young, left, with Reggie Bullock. Young scored 30 points but took 20 shots.Elsa/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe game was tied with about five minutes left. Atlanta did not score another field goal the rest of the game. Instead, the Hawks looked like the Knicks had in the first half, tentative and unable to make shots. Young was able to get off only one shot in that stretch, to the delight of a Garden crowd that had booed every mistake of their new archenemy.Now the series will move to Atlanta for Games 3 and 4. The Knicks were 16-20 on the road during the regular season. Thibodeau and his team can take solace in the fact that, despite their best players putting up poor performances, they barely lost Game 1 and rallied to tie the series on Wednesday. Whatever questions they have, the Knicks certainly have the confidence of Thibodeau.“Look, I love this team,” Thibodeau said, high praise from the typically impassive coach. “There’s a great will and determination to them.” More

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      A Wrenching Knicks Loss, but an Electric Night at the Garden

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      Playoff basketball returned to Manhattan as a cultural event with a loud, spirited crowd and a new archenemy, the Hawks’ Trae Young.For 47 minutes 59.1 seconds, the fans at Madison Square Garden ranged from raucous to delirious, as the Knicks — their Knicks — were locked in a dogfight on Sunday night against the Atlanta Hawks in the New York team’s first N.B.A. playoff game since 2013.And with nine-10ths of a second remaining, Trae Young, the Hawks’ star guard, was able to get around Frank Ntilikina, a guard ostensibly known for his defense, and hit a game-winning floater.Young then added insult to injury by using his finger to shush the crowd, a good portion of which had been sending profane chants his way for much of the game, a 107-105 Hawks win.”Next one.”🤫🤫-@TheTraeYoung pic.twitter.com/e41Knsyl53— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) May 24, 2021
      “I’ve always looked at it as I’m doing something right if I’m offending them with my play that much,” Young told reporters after the game, adding, “Just got to let my play do the talking because at the end of the day, fans can only talk. They can’t guard me.”Neither could the Knicks in Game 1 of this best-of-seven first-round series. An unfazed Young took the air of the building repeatedly as he took over in the fourth quarter. It wasn’t just the game winner. It was the two free throws with 28 seconds left. Another floater with less than two minutes left, plus a free throw. Young scored 13 of his 32 points in the fourth quarter, deftly casting aside the howling home fans and the haymakers the Knicks kept throwing the Hawks’ way in a back-and-forth thriller. All nine of Young’s free throws came in the final quarter, as did three of his 10 assists.The Knicks tried valiantly to keep Young contained in pick-and-rolls. It didn’t work, as Young used his best weapon — the floater — to frustrate much taller centers.“He’s a great player,” Tom Thibodeau, the Knicks’ coach, said. “We’ll take a look at the film. You’re not going to be able to stay with a steady diet of anything, so obviously we have to do a better job.”Gathering outside Madison Square Garden before the game.Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesOn their feet inside near the end of the game.Pool photo by Seth WenigSunday’s game had all the hallmarks of the classic Knicks playoff games N.B.A. audiences were accustomed to in the 1990s. (Before tipoff, Thibodeau, who was an assistant coach for the Knicks then, recalled that he had never heard a building as loud as Madison Square Garden when Larry Johnson hit a game-tying 3 against the Indiana Pacers in Game 3 of the 1999 Eastern Conference finals — one of the most famous shots in Knicks history.)Game 1 was low scoring and defensively oriented, much like the premillennium Knicks. Angry fans chanted profanities at an opposing team’s best player (and the referees). Those same ones screamed so loudly that the public-address announcer could not be heard after RJ Barrett’s fast-break dunk over Bogdan Bogdanovic in the third quarter sent the crowd of 15,047 into a frenzy.An exuberant Spike Lee berated the referees and embraced Knicks players from the sideline. Other celebrities, like Tracy Morgan, Jon Stewart and Rachel Brosnahan, sat courtside to aid in efforts to rattle the Hawks. Christopher Jackson, the Broadway star, sang the national anthem. David Guetta, the French D.J., performed at halftime.The playoff opener was a reminder that at its best, the Knicks basketball experience is as much a cultural event in New York as it is a basketball one. (To that end, Andrew Yang, one of the leading candidates for mayor of New York City, posted a video of himself on Twitter shaking hands with attendees outside the arena before the game. He had apparently gotten over his previous disavowal of the franchise, which had also been done on Twitter.)The contest had everything Knicks fans could want except for a win. But this was the kind of game that had some significant outliers, making it difficult to project the rest of the series. For one thing, while Young, an All-Star, came through for the Hawks, the Knicks’ All-Star did not. Julius Randle, facing a steady rush of double teams, shot 6 for 23 from the field for 15 points. He dominated the Hawks during the regular season, but could not get his jumpers to fall on Sunday.“Listen, I’m not making no excuses,” Randle said. “I’ve got to be better, and I will be better. I’ll just leave it at that.”As a whole, the Knicks were one of the most accurate 3-point-shooting teams in the N.B.A. On Sunday, they were 10 for 30 from deep — 33 percent, far below their season average of 39 percent.The Knicks stayed in the game mostly because of the play of the reserves, particularly Alec Burks, who led the team with 27 points off the bench. Derrick Rose had 17 points and Immanuel Quickley added 10, including two momentum shifting 3s.Immanuel Quickley celebrated after hitting a 3-pointer in the first-half.Pool photo by Seth WenigA slight bounce here or a friendly foul call that doesn’t go Young’s way, and this discussion is way different. It would be about the Knicks returning to playoff glory and the large number of city residents who suddenly had to — wink, wink — call out sick on Monday. It would be about how the Knicks beat the Hawks despite their best players not playing well, and how well that bodes in a series in which the Knicks have home-court advantage.But the Hawks pulled it out. And they’re one game closer to a series win than the Knicks are.But there’s plenty of reason for optimism for the Knicks heading into Game 2 on Wednesday night at the Garden. Randle showed himself to be too good a player this season, particularly against Atlanta, to have a repeat of Sunday’s game. By the law of averages, more of those 3s the Knicks missed will start going in. The supporting cast showed it was capable of taking some of the load off Randle. And the team was 25-11 at home in the regular season.The unsolvable issue may be Young, one of the few players who can hurt a team from anywhere on the court. When the Knicks played up on him, he drove around them. When they gave him room to operate, he got off his floater or found Hawks teammates for dunks. The answer may be to pack the paint and encourage him to shoot more from 3-point range, where he was a 34.3 percent shooter during the regular season, or to send more traps at him to force the ball out of his hands.Even though Ntilikina was burned on Young’s game winner, he may get more time if Young continues to abuse the guards who had difficulty with him, like the starting guard Elfrid Payton, who continued to be ineffective.The one constant for Game 2 is that Knicks fans will be out in force. Lee will be there screaming, and thousands of others will match him note for note. As Rose said about the opener, the fans gave the team “everything that we expected and probably a little bit more.” More

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      What Rudy Tomjanovich Learned by Coaching the Greats

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      Tomjanovich led the Houston Rockets to two championships (Hakeem Olajuwon), briefly coached the Lakers (Kobe Bryant) and oversaw an Olympic team (Kevin Garnett).Even as a noted players’ coach, Rudy Tomjanovich had a hunch Kobe Bryant would need some time to embrace their new partnership.After five years and three N.B.A. championships under Phil Jackson, and having thrived in the read-and-react triangle offense Jackson championed, Bryant was suddenly playing for a lifelong Houston Rocket with different sideline sensibilities.“It was an adjustment for him because I was a play caller,” Tomjanovich said.What Tomjanovich shared with Jackson, if not an offensive philosophy, was a gift for reading superstars and ultimately connecting with them. His time with Bryant was short during the 2004-5 season, when Tomjanovich quickly deduced that the stress of coaching had become damaging to his health, but at least one Laker urged him not to walk away.“Kobe tried to talk me out of it,” Tomjanovich said in a telephone interview, reflecting on his resignation, as well as how he meshed with Bryant, after just 43 games.In the buildup to this weekend’s pandemic-delayed inductions for the Basketball Hall of Fame’s class of 2020, Tomjanovich, 72, has been telling old stories often — most of them, naturally, from his 32-year run as a player, scout and coach in Houston. The class is headlined by Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Bryant, who will be presented by Michael Jordan and inducted posthumously. Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26, 2020, that grief-stricken fans and peers, all of the honorees included, are still struggling to process.Tomjanovich coached Bryant and the Lakers for 43 games before stepping down for health reasons.Brian Bahr/Getty ImagesTomjanovich, after twice being named a finalist but not in 2019, earned his place among the 2020 inductees for his coaching achievements in Houston — particularly his championship partnership with Hakeem Olajuwon. The Rockets won back-to-back titles in 1993-94 and 1994-95, first with Olajuwon as the lone All-Star, then as a lowly No. 6 seed after a midseason trade reunited Olajuwon with Clyde Drexler, his college teammate from the University of Houston’s men’s basketball teams known as Phi Slama Jama.Those Rockets teams were routinely dismissed as champions of circumstance, branded as beneficiaries of Jordan’s 18-month hiatus from the N.B.A. to try to transform himself into a Chicago White Sox outfielder. We’ve since learned, through “The Last Dance” documentary series, that Jordan’s iconic Chicago Bulls were not a lock to handle Houston without a big man anywhere near Olajuwon’s level.“I heard it from the horse’s mouth — and that’s Michael,” Tomjanovich said.He said that Charles Barkley, in his first season as a Rocket in 1996-97, arranged a dinner at his home in Phoenix for the Rockets’ coaching staff. There were two very special invited guests: Tiger Woods and Jordan.“It was the first time I really got a chance to talk to Michael,” Tomjanovich said. “Nobody can ever know who would have won, but he said they were concerned that they couldn’t stop Hakeem. It was great to hear it from him.”Bladder cancer brought a cruel halt to Tomjanovich’s three decades in Houston after the 2002-3 season. Yet the way he managed an array of big personalities across 12 seasons as the Rockets’ coach helped Tomjanovich emerge as the Lakers’ choice to replace Jackson — after some flirtations with Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and an attempt to lure Miami’s Pat Riley back to Hollywood. Tomjanovich, then 56, signed a five-year, $30 million contract to coach the Lakers, who traded Shaquille O’Neal to Riley’s Heat four days later.Hakeem Olajuwon was the cornerstone of Houston’s back-to-back title teams in the 1990s under Tomjanovich.Noren Trotman/NBAE via Getty Images“I probably shouldn’t have done that,” Tomjanovich said. “First of all, I was excited that the cancer was gone. I thought, ‘I can’t pass this thing up,’ but then I just felt like I was hurting myself and I had to let it go. I love to coach good players, and Kobe was great. I thought I could do it, health-wise and body-wise, but I couldn’t. People said it was a lot of money to give up, but what good is money if you’re going to make yourself sick?”It was the rare Tomjanovich comeback story without a happy ending. As a player, he survived a vicious on-court punch from Kermit Washington in December 1977 and recovered to reach his fifth All-Star Game in 1978-79. As a coach, Tomjanovich steered the Rockets to playoff upsets of the teams with the league’s top four records (Utah, Phoenix, San Antonio and Orlando) in the 1995 playoffs to win title No. 2, including a second-round rally against the Suns after Houston fell into a 3-1 series deficit.“That’s how we got one of the greatest quotes ever in basketball,” Robert Horry, one of Tomjanovich’s Houston stalwarts, said on Monday. “Don’t ever underestimate the heart of a champion.”That defiant rebuttal to Rockets skeptics, from a beaming Tomjanovich after Houston completed a 4-0 N.B.A. finals sweep of O’Neal’s Orlando Magic, became his signature line.He is still working in the league, hired in December by the Minnesota Timberwolves as a front-office consultant. He referred to his induction as “the cherry on top of it all” and said that coaching gave him what he craved most other than championships in his final years as a player.A new identity.“I heard that for a while and it was getting old — ‘Oh, you’re the guy who got punched,’” Tomjanovich said. “It was really good to push that in the background.”Tomjanovich didn’t coach Duncan, but said he would never forget the dread he felt upon seeing him as a rookie in San Antonio, teaming with David Robinson. “The first time they threw him the ball, I watched how he caught it and where he positioned it under his chin and how he looked to the middle,” Tomjanovich said. “I got sick to my stomach.”He did briefly coach Garnett and, not surprisingly, clicked with another star. Tomjanovich coached the United States at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Garnett was one of his loudest leaders. Two scares against Lithuania, including a semifinal that the Americans easily could have lost, will surely stay with members of that team, since U.S.A. Basketball, to that point, had not lost with N.B.A. players.“I’m telling you, that was a big, big boulder that you’re carrying around,” Tomjanovich said. “You don’t want to be the first.”Perhaps he and Garnett will have a chance to share a relieved laugh about it at some point during Saturday’s festivities. Every moment of levity is bound to be relished on what figures to be, at various points, an unavoidably somber evening.From left, Robert Horry, Clyde Drexler and Tomjanovich won a championship with the Houston Rockets in the 1994-95 season as the No. 6 seed.Scott Halleran/Getty ImagesHorry, the role player supreme, has as much reason to watch as anyone. He won two of his seven championships alongside Duncan in San Antonio and regards Tomjanovich as “the best coach to play for.” He also played for Jackson and Gregg Popovich, but rates Tomjanovich at the top “because he had a feel for the players and a feel for the game.”“I only still talk to one of them,” Horry said, referring to Tomjanovich.Yet Horry added that he was unlikely to tune in, as much as he wanted to celebrate Rudy T’s big moment, and it was clear why. For all we anticipate with this starry class — what sort of speech we get from the spotlight-shy Duncan is one prime example — it’s still so hard to get past the unjust and unfillable hole in the whole occasion without Bryant able to take his rightful turn on the podium.Bryant joined the Lakers at 17, grew up over the course of 20 seasons in Los Angeles on the biggest of N.B.A. stages and, after such a long and prosperous career, had his life cut tragically short. As a regular analyst on Lakers broadcasts, Horry said he feels that sting every time the team’s network runs what it calls “Mamba Moment” highlight tributes to Bryant, his teammate on the Lakers’ three-peat championship teams from 1999-2000 to 2001-2.Horry’s daughter, Ashlyn, had a rare genetic condition and died at 17 in 2011. He said he thinks often about Vanessa Bryant, Kobe’s wife, and “having to talk about not just losing a daughter but a husband, too.”“It’s too sad,” Horry said.The plan here is to revel as much as possible in Saturday’s joys, like the overdue recognition for a decorated coach like Tomjanovich, while bracing for the sadness we will all understand.The Scoop @TheSteinLineCorner ThreeThe Miami Heat had a shorter off-season than any other Eastern Conference team after their run to the 2020 finals stretched into October.Steven Senne/Associated PressYou ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.(Questions may be condensed or lightly edited for clarity.)Q: In last week’s newsletter, you wrote that no one foresaw that three of last season’s final four teams would be in danger of landing in the playoff play-in tournament. That is demonstrably untrue. I am no N.B.A. prophet, but I was published in your newsletter before the season started saying that it was tremendously unfair to ask the four best teams from the season before to return to play after as little as 71 days off. I can only assume that many other voices expressed similar concerns. — Avary Mitchell (McKinney, Texas)Stein: I have never disagreed for one second with what you wrote in December. The truncated turnaround from last season to this season was always going to be roughest on the Lakers, Heat, Celtics and Nuggets — and, yes, unfair in a lot of ways.But I don’t remember anyone saying that they expected any of those teams to slip all the way to No. 7 in its conference.I reread your letter, and the same holds for you. There’s a difference between denouncing the disparity in teams’ off-seasons and predicting that the defending champion Lakers would finish seventh in the West.Injuries and Covid-19 disruptions have been a major factor for the Lakers, Heat and Celtics, on top of the unfairness, but all have still managed to slip further in the standings than any of the worst-case-scenario pundits were projecting when the season began.Q: You have been writing a lot about the Nets’ recent signing of the former CSKA Moscow guard Mike James. I want to ask you about the guard from my country who recently joined CSKA: Gabriel Lundberg. He does not have a Luka Doncic pedigree, but he was the driving force behind Denmark’s upset of Lithuania in November. Does he have an N.B.A. future? — Martin Ronnow Lund (Denmark)Stein: Thank you, Martin, for what (I think) will be recorded as our first question from Denmark.I’ve done some checking on Lundberg, since I admittedly don’t have much of a file on him, and it’s fair to say that N.B.A. teams are well aware of him now. At 26, he has made a storybook progression from playing in the Spanish second division as recently as the 2017-18 season to emerging as a force with a European powerhouse like CSKA. The performance (28 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists) you referred to against Lithuania certainly registered in front offices here, even though Lithuania didn’t have access to its N.B.A. players.There will be questions about his size (6-foot-4) as a shooting guard and his one-on-one skills, but I am told he plays with great confidence — to go with his great back story. Perhaps he can be the first Dane to really break through in the N.B.A.; helping a James-less CSKA reach the EuroLeague final four ensures he will be well scouted.Lars Hansen was the first Danish-born player to be drafted and had a brief stint with Seattle in the late 1970s, but he moved to Canada at a young age and represented Canada in the 1976 Olympics. David Andersen, who had a Danish father, had stints with Houston, Toronto and New Orleans in the N.B.A., but he was born in Australia and played internationally as an Australian. The Nets drafted the Copenhagen-born Christian Drejer with the 51st overall pick in 2004, but Drejer never played in the N.B.A.Q: I read your recent newsletter on the play-in games format and, as a fan, I love it. I also love the Knicks. The last several years have been rough, but I want to know: Is Tom Thibodeau going to win the Coach of the Year Award? — (Peter Thurlow, Ridgewood, N.J.)Stein: My official unofficial ballot, which I publish every season just for posterity, will headline next Tuesday’s newsletter. As a reminder: The New York Times does not participate in league award voting in any sport, but I still like going through the exercise of breaking down each race just for discussion purposes.While saving my extended commentary on coach of the year and the other categories until then, I can share that I was indeed leaning toward Thibodeau entering the final week of the regular season because of his unquestioned influence in establishing the Knicks as this season’s foremost overachieving team. To actually win it, though, he’ll have to beat out the league’s only two coaches (Utah’s Quin Snyder and Phoenix’s Monty Williams) likely to wind up in the 50-win club in this 72-game season.Numbers GameCarmelo Anthony keeps climbing the career scoring leaderboard, at a time when many thought he would be out of the league.Steph Chambers/Getty Images5Since Portland’s Carmelo Anthony made his debut in the N.B.A. in 2003-4, five players have moved into the N.B.A.’s top 10 in career scoring: No. 3 LeBron James (35,318), No. 4 Kobe Bryant (33,643), No. 6 Dirk Nowitzki (31,560), No. 8 Shaquille O’Neal (28,596) and No. 10 Anthony (27,337). The five players displaced from the top 10 in that span, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, were John Havlicek, Dominique Wilkins, Oscar Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon and Elvin Hayes.30Russell Westbrook is the N.B.A.’s new career leader in triple-doubles in the regular season, after surpassing Oscar Robertson’s record 181 on Monday in Atlanta, but he still has some ground to make up to match Magic Johnson’s record of 30 postseason triple-doubles. Westbrook has 10 playoff triple-doubles — two more than Robertson’s eight. LeBron James, with 28, is Johnson’s closest pursuer on the postseason list.2In April 1970, after successfully blocking a trade to Baltimore, Oscar Robertson was dealt to the Milwaukee Bucks from the Cincinnati Royals for the modest return of Flynn Robinson and Charlie Paulk. Robinson and Paulk spent only one season each in Cincinnati, and the Royals, just two seasons after the trade, moved out of Ohio to become the Kings and a team with two home cities: Kansas City, Mo., and Omaha.15Dallas’s Luka Doncic and Philadelphia’s Dwight Howard lead the league with 15 technical fouls each, followed by Russell Westbrook (14). Doncic and Howard each remain one technical away from a one-game suspension, but there would be no carry-over if a 16th tech was accrued in the final game of the regular season. Slates are wiped clean for the playoffs, with seven technicals in the postseason resulting in a one-game suspension.22-9Since Damian Lillard’s debut season in 2012-13, Portland has won 22 of its 31 games against the Los Angeles Lakers, according to Elias. It’s the Lakers’ second-worst record against an opponent in that span, better only than a 7-28 mark against the Los Angeles Clippers. The Trail Blazers’ home win Friday over the Lakers gave them a huge edge in the race to secure the sixth seed in the Western Conference and to avoid the playoff play-in round next week.Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. More

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      The Root of the Knicks’ Success? Caring When They Didn’t Have To.

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      In a season of uncertainty, the Knicks gave fans, and opponents, one thing to count on: “They were coming to play,” one observer said.Of all the postseason-ensuring victories across the Knicks’ grand reawakening of a regular season, none rose to the level of their most compelling, collective triumph. That would be the defeat of every team’s most formidable opponent: the coronavirus pandemic.Like most teams in all sports, they have had their brushes with Covid-19. But at least until a swing out West that always loomed as a caveat to their playoff seeding, the Knicks could be counted on to “show up every night,” to quote a dearly departed season ticket holder I long knew.Some N.B.A. teams did little to improve on borderline playoff rosters or gutted them completely. Others that figured to be measurably superior to the Knicks have wobbled under the weight of too many nights when they didn’t show up — physically or spiritually.The N.B.A. this season has experienced an acute blowout problem, on pace late last month for more games after the All-Star break decided by 20 or more points since 1967-68. Let Jeff Van Gundy, the loquacious network analyst and former Knicks coach, begin to explain.“In a trying season for everybody — with testing and Covid, injuries and load management — you just haven’t known who’s going to be there, night in and night out,” he said in a telephone interview. “But with the Knicks, you have known, for the most part, they were coming to play.”This is where the hiring of Tom Thibodeau as coach was seamlessly set to pandemic conditions. Especially for what Van Gundy called “the whole crowd thing,” meaning that because there were no fans in arenas for most of the season, there has largely been no external force helping teams hold on to the rope after falling behind.Thibodeau was clear from the start: He wasn’t interested in coaching a team on training wheels, instead subscribing to the maxim that the best teaching environment is a winning one.Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesFrom no fans to some fans, these Knicks didn’t much need to be incentivized by a Madison Square Garden crowd. The coach’s baritone voice has been more than enough.Who among the emerging young players (RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley), veterans on expiring contracts (Reggie Bullock, Alec Burks) or reacquainted Thibodeau loyalists (Taj Gibson, Derrick Rose) was not going to be all-in with an old-school taskmaster, in his first year on the job?Van Gundy, who had Thibodeau on his Knicks staff two decades ago during the last multiseason period of Knicks relevance, mentioned an unnamed coach who told him that the higher the level of basketball you reach, winning during the regular season tends to “matter less and less to the players.” Maybe that’s an exaggeration, or simply not true. But with these Knicks, Van Gundy said, “the care factor has been exceptionally high.”Forgive the nostalgia, but their season has been reminiscent of 1982-83, when Hubie Brown rolled into town with a reputation much like Thibodeau’s, preaching defense and devotion, albeit in an exacting voice that over time grew discordant.Bernard King was the star of Hubie Brown’s 1982-83 Knicks team.Bill Kostroun/Associated PressBrown’s first Knicks team lost 26 of its first 40 games, then caught fire, won 24 of 30 and steamed into the playoffs to win a round (for the record, against the Nets).As with Julius Randle now, Bernard King was their lone star then, the one indispensable Knick, wearing the same No. 30. While other teams have required an Etch A Sketch to chart their stars’ nightly lineup availability, Randle has lost one game to injury and none to rest, leading the league in minutes played.Load management is generally for the established elite, not for a guy in the midst of a remarkable breakout season, and who began it with a partially guaranteed salary for 2021-22.Beyond Randle, Leon Rose, the team’s president, built a deep roster of interchangeable parts, ready for a condensed schedule promising to be marred by pandemic unpredictability. When the starting center Mitchell Robinson went down, the peripatetic young veteran Nerlens Noel stepped up. When Burks, a strong contributor to the team’s improved offense, was out because of virus protocols, Rose and Bullock picked up the scoring pace.“In the regular season, you can’t be top-heavy, you need depth, which Leon did a great job with,” Van Gundy said. “In the playoffs, you need greatness.”Watching the Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic dismantle the Knicks in Denver last week may well have been a playoff preview. But wherever the Knicks’ season goes from here, it has been all the more astonishing when considering how little they have to show for their last five lottery picks, all top 10.Julius Randle colliding into Nuggets forward Paul Millsap in Denver on Wednesday.Ron Chenoy/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBasically, it’s the ever-improving Barrett, at least until Obi Toppin gets to prove he is more than the second coming of Kenny Walker, better known as Sky. Kristaps Porzingis? Long gone. Frank Ntilikina and Kevin Knox? Might as well be.Here, again, is where the Thibodeau hiring has been a timely blessing. You may have argued last fall that this would be the perfect season to sacrifice achievement for player development, with few paying customers to please. I know I did. Why not find out once and for all about Ntilikina and Knox? Why not turn Toppin and Quickley loose from Day 1?Thibodeau was clear from the start: He wasn’t interested in coaching a team on training wheels, instead subscribing to the maxim that the best teaching environment is a winning one.Peter Roby, a childhood friend of Thibodeau’s, who in 1985 hired him for the coaching staff at Harvard, likes to playfully remind people of how Thibodeau, the acclaimed defensive guru, was known in his “knucklehead” youth for never passing up a shot. But in a recent telephone interview, he brought up Thibodeau’s age, 63, old enough to have been introduced to the pro game by the Knicks’ early 1970s championship team.Those Knicks were all about ball sharing and defense, the kind of championship DNA, Roby said, that Thibodeau associates with the franchise, even if it hasn’t won a title since the presidency of Richard M. Nixon.“Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley — those are his Knicks,” Roby said.His father’s Knicks, as well. Thibodeau wanted this generation-connective job too much to embark on a five-year plan that could easily disintegrate, given the organization’s trademark volatility under the ownership of James L. Dolan.Even with few or no fans, the Knicks have played hard.Pool photo by ElsaHe also knows how easily an N.B.A. head coach his age can overnight be downgraded from outstanding to outdated with one twist of fate — what befell Brown after King tore up a knee at the height of his scoring prowess in 1985.Chasing pickup games with Thibodeau while growing up in New Britain, Conn., a border town where sports passion is split between Boston and New York, Roby also chose the Knicks over the Celtics. As a former athletic director at Northeastern and current interim athletic director at Dartmouth, he’s long been closer to Boston but is a bigger Knicks fan than ever, thanks to his old pal.“Can you imagine what it would be like if they were playing in front of a full Garden house?” Roby said.We can, but perhaps we shouldn’t. Not yet. Because who knows what comes next, when the high-achieving role players, Derrick Rose included, will demand their free-agent rewards. When road games — such as Friday night’s in Phoenix, where the Knicks faltered late in front of 8,063 fans — may again require competing with a full-throated cacophony. When expectation will become part of the equation and, yes, when Thibodeau’s voice could begin to grate.Stirring to life a long-slumbering franchise, the story of the season has been harmony for coach and players, all while withstanding, even foiling, the daunting challenge of a pandemic. More