Does Tom Thibodeau's Knicks Future Hinge on Miami Series?

Tom Thibodeau has undoubtedly gotten a lot done with the New York Knicks this season, but missing out on a prime opportunity to reach the conference finals could be frowned upon with some championship talents relieved of duties elsewhere.

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There are news dumps and then there's what the New York Rangers did on Saturday afternoon. 

Fresh off postseason brutality in the opening round of the NHL's 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs (losing a 2-0 lead en route to a seven-game loss to the New Jersey Devils), Madison Square Garden's professional hockey team "mutually parted ways" with head coach Gerard Gallant. 

Thus ended Gallant's two-year tenure in blue, one that simultaneously failed to meet expectations and stand as a pairing that many of their NHL brethren would give their left arms to experience: the 216 points the Rangers earned over Gallant's watch were fifth-best in the NHL and they reached the conference finals last summer (albeit losing another 2-0 lead to the then-two-time defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning).

The Rangers dropped the news on Saturday late afternoon, when a good portion of their metropolitan fanbase was likely taking in the New York Knicks' futile Eastern Conference Semifinal matchup against the Miami Heat, a 105-86 loss that put them behind 2-1 in the best-of-seven set.

Scheduling for MSG's famed floor notwithstanding, the moves of one roommate rarely affect the other. It's not like the Knicks would ditch Thibodeau because their icy companions planted the idea into their heads. 

There might be other, legitimate reasons from a hardwood perspective for that.

Let's get one thing out of the way: if Thibodeau was coaching anywhere else in the NBA ... perhaps with the exception of Los Angeles' purple-and-gold team ... his employment status for the 2023-24 season would be long assured. Originally criticized for exorcising talents both raw and proven from the New York lineup, his decision to switch and stick to a nine-man rotation has paid major dividends and shifted the narrative and trajectory of the Knicks' season. 

Thibodeau has also weaned himself off the concept of seeing experienced players as infallible: his decision to bench All-Star Julius Randle during the fourth quarter of a momentum-shifting fourth game of the Eastern quarterfinals against Cleveland drew controversy but led to a crucial win. He pulled the plug on the Evan Fournier experience fairly quickly and afforded his starting five role to Quentin Grimes, who (along with Immanuel Quickley) became a trusted, essential part of this metropolitan affair rather than trade fodder. Thibodeau has even broken his apparent grudge against Obi Toppin to not only afford him major minutes but rely upon him while Randle has dealt with injuries. 

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The Knicks' success also makes it easy to forget that the Knicks are probably nowhere near full strength: at 47 wins and standing among the playoff bracket's automatic entrants, New York was one of the biggest overachievers in the NBA this season (thanks primarily to Jalen Brunson's breakout) and one has to imagine where they could've landed if not for a 10-13 start before Thibodeau professed his devotion to the nine-man set. 

For all intents and purposes, that should be enough to quell any storm surrounding his future. But there would perhaps be no better way for a coach of the modern Knicks to go out than to become the face of a struggle he was far from fully responsible for. 

Let's say Thibodeau's Knicks indeed fall to the Heat. Hardwood comedians of both the professional and amateur variety have likely stockpiled material in the event of the Knicks being denied a long-sought trip to the conference finals by an eighth seed, no matter how noble or worthy an opponent South Beach has proven to be. 

The two losses sustained thus far, however, are not the usual brand of New York defeats: rather than careless errors leading to high-profile defeats that can prove to be downright comical, it's been a failure to adjust that has burned the Knicks in the early stages of this series. Each of the losses has seen them abandon the draining, penetrating efforts of interior work and instead try to throw threes at the problem to make it go away. New York's 20 percent success rate (8-of-40) from deep, partly staged in desperation because things got out of hand in a hurry, was its worst posting in an NBA Playoff game with at least 20 attempts, matching the output from the infamous Game 7 loss to Houston in the 1994 NBA Finals.

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It's one thing to lose to a better team. But the Knicks proved themselves well capable of beating Miami this season, turning a narrow chase to avoid Play-In Tournament purgatory in a sizable canyon with three victories in four matchups all played within this calendar year. 

Other old Thibodeau habits that seem to die hard include his preference of sticking veterans in over fresh young talent: Grimes, for example, was injured in the quarterfinal series win over Cleveland but has lost his pregame introduction to Josh Hart, the newest Knick that held his own in the rebounding game but has surprisingly become a slight offensive liability (40 percent from the field and 58 percent from the foul line in the three games against the Heat so far).

Thibodeau's fate could further be decided by factors well beyond his control: the fact that prime coaching talent lingers on the market after disappointing seasons abroad.

Mike Budenholzer, for example, was the ultimate victim of the Heat's first-round upset win, relieved of his duties as the top-ranked Milwaukee Bucks' boss in the aftermath despite bringing home the 2021 title and 271 wins over the past five years, far and away the most in the NBA. Up north, 2019 champion Nick Nurse was bid adieu by the Toronto Raptors, leaving three of the last four championship-winning NBA Finals-winning head coaches (along with 2020 O'Brien Trophy hoister and L.A. victim Frank Vogel) unemployed. 

The Knicks have made no secret about trying to lure a superstar that would serve as the missing piece of their ticket to the Eastern Conference penthouse. One hesitates to use the word "process" in a hardwood sense considering the butchering the Knicks' division rivals in Philadelphia did the word, but overachieving in a year many expected to end in Play-In purgatory will make it tempting for the Knicks to draw their blueprints faster.

Could that mean ousting Thibodeau, who has proven capable of competing but not contending for a title in his years as an NBA boss, in favor of exiled coaches that have personally experienced that championship feeling? 

Again, it shouldn't. Thibodeau has made the most out of his current surroundings that formed a far-from-complete championship picture. One can only imagine what he can do with a "complete" team, one that the Knicks have reportedly kept busy in forming while the series with the Heat blazes on.

Alas, impatience on the sidelines is far from uncommon in the cursed annals of Knicks history. Stu Jackson could tell you that, as his victorious postseason efforts at the age of 33 (winning 45 games and ousting Boston after Rick Pitino's voluntary departure in 1989-90) didn't save him from a 7-8 start and the eventual hire of Pat Riley. Jeff Hornacek, famous for the playoff-free 48-win season in Phoenix, has been apparently (and unfairly) blacklisted after he struggled to work through the cesspool that was 2010s Knicks basketball. 

Even coaching legends aren't exempt: former all-time coaching wins leader Lenny Wilkens righted the Knicks' ship during the 2004-05 season but failed to last the ensuing campaign, resigning after management made it clear they'd side with Stephon Marbury and the island of misfit veterans. It was a process that would more or less repeat itself with Larry Brown the following year, though he was able to last a full season before he was fired.

One certainty lies in the path of Thibodeau and the Knicks, one that can silence any questioners and quell all doubts about the future: win.

That, of course, has proven elusive for Thibodeau's predecessors and there's hardly any guarantees, something he might be experiencing the hard way. 

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Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags

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