Tom Thibodeau is the right coach for the Knicks at the right time
Tom Thibodeau isn't the perfect coach. He is demanding, even irascible, and this approach can often rub players the wrong way.
When he has the right players, however, players who are willing to sacrifice and work in order to succeed, Thibodeau's formula is a proven winner.
New York currently has these types of players in excess, and the effort and unselfishness the team is playing with right now can be infectious.
The main knock on Thibodeau throughout his coaching career has been the criticism that he runs his players into the ground. This is not entirely untrue. He is demanding of his players, and he expects maximum effort in practice and games. That's what he gives every day, after all.
Thibodeau's approach seems to be appreciated most by his ex-players as their careers wind down, or even after they retire, when they are better able to reflect on the success they achieved because of this hard work.
Names such as Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, Kevin Garnett, Yao Ming and Kobe Bryant have all gone on record praising the results of Thibodeau's demanding style.
"He was with me when I was 16 or 17 years old," Bryant told Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News in a 2010 interview. "Just doing drills and just working on ball handling and just teaching me the game. He was there from Day 1."
Thibodeau's calling card is defense. Always has been. This method of coaching has led to Thibodeau winning two NBA Coach of the Year awards, as well as his teams finishing in the top 10 defensively 15 times in his career as an assistant or a head coach.
His current Knicks team sits at eighth in the league defensively after 57 games. Eleven of New York's players sit above the league average defensive rating of 116.8. They too believe in Thibodeau's brand of basketball, and where all the hard work may take them.
The recent acquisition of OG Anunoby has given Thibodeau another weapon defensively, as Anunoby combines the effort and hustle his coach demands with true lockdown ability on an opposing team's star. The results with him in the lineup were staggering, with the Knicks winning 12 of 14 games before Anunoby went down with elbow inflammation, eventually leading to surgery.
He has joined starters Julius Randle and Mitchell Robinson on the injury list as New York attempts to hold their place in the standings until the team is fully recovered from their injuries.
The Knicks are young and hungry, and they have bought into Thibodeau's brand of coaching.
He is a detail oriented, defensive minded bulldog of a coach, and right now that is exactly what this team needs as they try get back to the promised land.
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