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Report: Knicks to interview Mike Woodson for head coaching position

A blast from the last

Howard Megdal

SNY.tv's Ian Begley reports that in addition to Tom Thibodeau, Kenny Atkinson and interim head coach Mike Miller, a name familiar to Knicks fans will be in the mix as well: former Knicks coach Mike Woodson.

Woodson spent parts of three seasons in charge of the Knicks, compiling a 109-79 record. He too over late in the 2011-12 season for Mike D'Antoni, and went on to lead those Knicks to an 18-6 mark, following up with a 54-28 campaign in 2012-13 that remains the team's high-water mark in recent memory.

Notably, though Woodson's reputation is largely that of a defense-first coach, that is a trick of the tempo-reliant stats. Woodson's teams finished near the bottom of the league in pace, leading to artificially deflated defensive numbers, and the tempo-free evaluation of his teams reveal a below-average defensive group lifted in 2012-13 by the league's third-most efficient offense. The same was true of his best Atlanta Hawks teams.

All of which leads to questions about how Woodson may have changed, especially with a league that plays significantly faster than it did when he last served as a head coach. 

In 2019-20, the Charlotte Hornets finished 30th in pace, at 95.8 per 48 minutes. Woodson's 2013-14 Knicks finished at 90.3 per 48 minutes.

But Woodson went on to assist Doc Rivers in Los Angeles, and in his final season there, the Clippers posted a pace of 98.7, good for seventh in the league.

Anyhow, you can be sure Leon Rose will be asking plenty of questions about how and why Mike Woodson is the right fit for a 2020's era Knicks team. But the conversation probably needs to start with the basics of how fast he intends to play.

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Howard Megdal
HOWARD MEGDAL

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