Can you fire a coach during a playoff series?
Good morning. Tom Thibodeau welcomes the Knicks to the bad place. Plus: Playoff Jamal Murray is finally back and the Bucks say goodbye with a tribute to the Pacers. Let's basketball.
Good morning. Tom Thibodeau welcomes the Knicks to the bad place. Plus: Playoff Jamal Murray is finally back and the Bucks say goodbye with a tribute to the Pacers. Let's basketball.
Despite running what has seemed like the best New York Knickerbockers teams of this millennium, Tom Thibodeau has felt under pressure pretty much all season. The rationale: the team is so good because of the roster-building, which went all-in on a dynamic 1-2 offensive punch and two highly respected two-way wings. Thibodeau has mostly been criticized for wearing down his stars with too many minutes, leading to a backlash in which anyone who makes that critiques is referred to as the "minutes police." This is a philosophical debate more than anything, and easily solved if Thibodeau's boss wanted Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges to play less.
What happened at the end of the Knicks' Game 5 loss to the Pistons at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday was not fixable, however. This was game management malpractice.
First, Brunson and Josh Hart had to leave the game after apparent injuries with 2:57 left in the fourth and the Pistons up two. The Knicks used a timeout at that point right after Cade Cunningham collided with Hart while passing to Jalen Duren for a dunk. Thibodeau put in Deuce McBride and Cam Payne. Not exactly the closers you want in a close game.
The dudes looked hurt – Brunson was moving terribly – but Thibodeau decided after another minute of game play that they were ready to come back in. They went to the scorers' table. New York had one timeout remaining. But tick tick tick. Gameplay continued. The man who just received the Clutch Player of the Year trophy before the game, sitting on the scorers' table, waiting to check in. The Pistons were in the bonus, so the Knicks didn't want to foul to stop the clock and get their All-NBA guard and a key defender back in. The Knicks weren't aggressively driving the lane in hopes of getting fouled. The clock ran all the way down to 0:27 before Thibodeau finally called time so he could put Brunson and Hart back in.
By this point, the Pistons were up by six. The game was basically over.
Thibodeau was probably right to reserve his final timeout. The Pistons actually did really well to burn clock while still getting decent looks. The problem is the timeout management to that point. All of the games in this series have been close. You just can't go into the final three minutes of a close playoff game with a single timeout!
It got worse.
Bridges nailed an extremely quick three out of the timeout. Knicks down three with 25 seconds remaining. Pistons timeout. Hart goes back out for McBride. J.B. Bickerstaff puts shooters on the floor for Duren and Ausar Thompson. After a near turnover and wild scramble, O.G. Anunoby fouls Dennis Schroder. He makes the first, misses the second. Remember: the Knicks are out of timeouts. Anunoby goes down and hits a very tough three over Cunningham. ONE-POINT GAME. Pistons take their final timeout.
The Knicks intentionally foul Cunningham and he hits both. Thibodeau keeps his shooters on the floor: Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, Bridges, Anunoby and McBride. This is wise and correct. McBride brings the ball up and is intentionally fouled before midcourt. Wise and cowardly from the Pistons, but given the cursed times that franchise has experienced, all is fair. Three seconds left, Knicks down three.
McBride misses the first. The Knicks now need an offensive rebound and a three.
Thibodeau subs in Mitchell Robinson, presumably for the rebound part. But with so little time and no time-outs, Robinson is anathema to the three-point part.
Thibodeau realizes the error of his ways and tries to un-sub Robinson.
Robinson has already checked in and entered the floor, so he must come into the game. Thibodeau still tries to send him to the bench, but the officials insist that he has to check in now.
McBride is at the free throw line, so you can't pull him. So Thibodeau has to decide who to pull for the final possession of a playoff game in which you need a three. He picks Bridges, who looks as miffed as Mikal Bridges can physiologically ever look with standing behind Thibodeau on the sideline watching it unfold.
The rebound is batted around and tipped by Towns to no one. Pistons win. The series returns to Detroit.
You have to give the Pistons credit: Bickerstaff coached it right down the middle in the fourth quarter, Cunningham and the defense delivered, the team is playing with intoxicating amounts of heart and effort and, frankly, maturity as the series wears on. You can't take a damn thing from the Pistons.
But once you see how badly Thibodeau botched the endgame, you can't unsee it.
Luckily for Knicks fans, he had a wonderfully verbose and thoughtful answer about what happened.
"It's just where we were with the timeouts – it was a coach's decision," he said. When pressed on what he was taking into account as time slipped away, he pointed to a number of considerations. "Time. Score. Penalty. All of the above. There's a lot that goes into it."
Thanks, Coach.
Thibodeau revolutionized NBA defense in the late 2000s and has by-and-large been successful as a head coach. But the game management stuff is so visible and, in this case, so awful. The Knicks are so much better than they were when Thibodeau arrived in 2020. But how much of that is Thibodeau's work, and how much can be credited to the massive talent infusion led by Leon Rose's front office?
It's hard to see how Thibodeau survives this season without a miracle run to the conference finals.
The Knicks could always find inspiration from the Grizzlies and Nuggets and one-up them. Those teams fired coaches heading into the playoffs. Why not try it in the playoffs? Take the whistle, Mo Cheeks or Rick Brunson.
Scores
Bucks 118, Pacers 119 – IND wins 4-1
Milwaukee was up seven with 40 seconds left in overtime and lost. This is the kind of loss Pacers fans are familiar with, because Indiana did things like this a few times this season. But they were on the other side this time.
Poor Gary Trent Jr. Two brutal turnovers to end the season. He's the second biggest reason the Bucks made it back to Indianapolis for Game 5 with his Game 3 heroics. And he was phenomenal in this game until the final 40 seconds of overtime (33 points, eight more threes). But this is going to stick with him for a long, long time.
After the game, Tyrese Haliburton's dad started hollerin' at Giannis and the Bucks. Giannis hollered back. Weird stuff.
Giannis explained what happened and why he found it disrespectful. Haliburton for his part said his dad was out of line. I'm 15% curious about what Bennedict Mathurin said to Giannis (or vice versa) to re-spark the drama. But mostly, I'm sad that we're either going to get Giannis in a new jersey or a depressing team around Giannis next season. Doc Rivers did shake up the starting five significantly: Trent stayed in over Taurean Prince. Kevin Porter Jr. started at the point. But he elevated Bobby Portis and A.J. Green over Brook Lopez and Kyle Kuzma, too. Not a great sign for the future.
Haliburton was phenomenal down the stretch. Next up: the team that just closed out their first round series with a 55-point win. Game 1 on Sunday.
Pistons 106, Knicks 103 – NYK leads 3-2
The only East first round series still going.
Magic 89, Celtics 120 – BOS wins 4-1
Boston didn't hit a single three-pointer in the first half (0/6) and trailed by two. Then Jayson Tatum cracked the Orlando defense in the third quarter, opening it up for the rest of the Celtics, all while the Magic couldn't hit a damn thing. Boston scored 36 in the third – a very good but not shocking quarter from the Celtics offense – and won the period by 23 points. Orlando scored 13 points in 23 possessions. They went scoreless on 16 of the 23 possessions. Boston's defense is excellent ... but damn, the Magic offense is brutal. A big part of it was that Paolo Banchero spent 10 minutes in the third on the bench with five fouls.
This series flew under the radar but Tatum has been one of the three best performers in the playoffs so far, despite missing a game. Excellence repeated over and over again.
Clippers 115, Nuggets 131 – DEN leads 3-2
The problem with the Clippers losing two winnable games in this series is that the Nuggets have Nikola Jokic, who is capable of doing anything on any given night, and Jamal Murray, one of the most consistent playoff overperformers in this generation. Murray hadn't had a signature game in this series yet. Well, he sure did in Game 5.
The defense was pretty good! Ivica Zubac was dropping a little deep with DeAndre Jordan in the game which gave Murray the space he needed, and the hard hedges on Nikola Jokic delay the rotation sometimes, but Kris Dunn was fighting through screens all night long and Murray just hit tough shots consistently, and found seams during scrambles. He's just a terrific shotmaker.
The Clippers had enough offense, they just couldn't get stops. Russell Westbrook's burst in the second quarter was really important to keep some distance between the teams, I thought.
Denver now improbably has two chances to get one win with Game 6 on Thursday. If Los Angeles' season ends at home in the next one ... woof. That would be a tough way to go.
Schedule
Two pivotal and sure-to-be interesting games. All times Eastern.
Warriors at Rockets, 7:30, TNT (GSW leads 3-1)
Timberwolves at Lakers, 10, TNT (MIN leads 3-1)
Links
Stephon Castle is your Rookie of the Year. Zaccharie Risacher finished second, Jaylen Wells a well-deserved third. I respect the single third-place Jared McCain vote! Those 23 games count, too.
Paul Flannery on the blurred line between physical play and dirty play as evidenced throughout the playoffs. By the way, I have three more 1-month subscriptions to Paul's Hoopology newsletter to give away. First three comments with a solution to the Magic's offensive problems get them.
Matt Moore on the NBA's chokehold on great teams.
Michael Pina on Ja Morant's future.
Alright, that's all. Be excellent to each other.
