Aaron Boone, good guy, has done even more winning with the Yankees, and for longer, than Tom Thibodeau has done with the Knicks. It doesn’t change the fact that Yankee fans think they might have won more with somebody else managing their baseball team, or the fact that Boone — did I mention that he’s a really good guy? — remains a polarizing figure with his fan base even working on a nice, new contract extension.
Thibodeau, even coming off the series that his team just won off the Pistons and even heading up to Boston for Game 1 against the Celtics on Monday night, is the same kind of polarizing figure with fans of his team. It’s complicated. But he just is. And it’s not going to get any better for him if this Celtics vs. Knicks series turns out to be the same kind of mismatch that the regular season series between the two teams was.
The hope is that this is every bit the series we just got from the Knicks and the Pistons — and even though that one looked even going in and this one that starts Monday night in Boston does not; even though the Celtics are the ones trying to defend a championship, something no Knicks coach or team has gotten the chance to do in more than half-a-century.
There is, without question, much to admire about Thibodeau, and the work he has done here as he and his boss, Leon Rose, have made the Knicks matter again. Not just matter, but make fans care about them more — and more loudly — than they have since Jeff Van Gundy (Thibodeau’s old boss) was the coach and the Knicks went to the Finals in 1999 and then back to the Eastern Conference finals the next year, the last time the Knicks have made it that deep into the postseason.
And there are good reasons for that. Plenty of them.
Thibodeau, of course, doesn’t get all the credit for Jalen Brunson becoming this kind of star, this kind of clutch player, really the best postseason player — with the exception of Bernard King in 1984, when he was the one carrying the Knicks past the Pistons in the first round by averaging more than 40 a game — the Knicks have had since Clyde Frazier, in addition to being the best point guard they’ve had in that time. But the fact is that Brunson was one kind of player in Dallas and he has become, well, THIS in New York. Thibodeau does have to get some of the credit for that.
And then there is Josh Hart, who was one kind of NBA player in Portland, and has become this kind of all-around force, and occasional triple-double guy, playing for Thibodeau in New York. You want to know why both Brunson and Hart stand up for Mr. Thibs the way they do? It’s all there on the court for you, especially when the Knicks are going good.
And who knows, perhaps over the next couple of weeks Karl-Anthony Towns will flourish under Thibodeau and under what are going to feel like the brightest lights of his career in a way he never did in Minnesota, especially at this time when Towns’ old team, the Timberwolves, is playing the way it played in knocking off LeBron and Luka and the Lakers.
We all know what the Knicks were before Thibodeau got to the Garden. We know that the team, under various coaches, spent most of the previous two decades looking like the worst team in the league but now have won 50 games for two consecutive seasons for the first time since the 1990s. It ain’t nothing.
So why isn’t Thibodeau loved more than he is by Knicks fans? Because he just isn’t. Is it more emotional than logical? It is, absolutely. And there are a lot of reasons for that. There is the offense which, even when the Knicks are going good, can so often be unwatchable, with what feels like a world’s record of shots that aren’t taken until deep into the shot clock. It’s about more ball pounding than passing.
But Thibodeau clearly doesn’t care about optics or aesthetics or how his team has won all those regular season games, just that it’s won them. And just finished third in the Eastern Conference this season behind the Cavs and Celtic.
But the fans see how Mikal Bridges looks when he is part of the offense and not a spectator. Saw a lot of moments against the Pistons — despite the focus on missed shots at the end of Game 5 — when he reminded you what he was like on a Suns team that went to the Finals. As memorable and as great as Brunson is, especially at winning time, there were times when we all saw how talented the Knicks’ starting five can look when everyone is involved.
Listen, there are reasons why John Mara and Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll are polarizing figures right now with the Giants. It’s because the Giants have been such dreary and unwatchable losers the past couple of years. The Knicks, though, are winners again. The Yankees just went to the World Series. But somehow their fans still keep Boone at arm’s length the way Knicks fans do Thibodeau.
Both do have contract extensions, you bet. And yet: Michael Malone just got fired in Denver less than two years after winning a championship, and coaching a team that is still alive in a meat grinder of a Western Conference, and through Thursday night had played itself into a Game 7 against the Clippers. Was it fair? Not even close. But it happened.
No one would ever suggest that it would be coaching malpractice if the Knicks lose to a Celtics team as deep and talented and tested as this. But the reality for the Knicks — for Rose, for Thibodeau, for these players — is that a lot has changed over the past year. OG Anunoby came to town, Towns came to town, so did Bridges. Randle and DiVincenzo left. So if the Knicks, say, get swept by the Celtics, or lose a lopsided series in five, then what do the Knicks change next? What variable might Jimmy Dolan and Rose focus on to keep the machine going, keep the Garden this loud and excited? What gets Knicks fans thinking that next season might be better, even with the Cavs and Celtics not going anywhere, and with the whole league seeing what a difference Kenny Atkinson just made with the Cavs when he was the one big change there.
Again: It’s complicated with Tom Thibodeau. He’s the coach who brought the Knicks back. He’s a pro, he respects the profession and the game and is clearly respected by his players. He got a lot out of last year’s group. He got a lot out of the group that added Towns and Bridges. But if the second round is the end of the line again, where do they all go from here? And where are the Knicks, really?
END THE SHEDEUR CONSPIRACY TALK, JUDGE MAKING IT LOOK EASY & HINCH’S TIGERS ARE THE REAL DEAL …
Hold on:
Deion’s kid isn’t still the biggest sports story on the planet this weekend?
And catch me up on one more thing:
Is it still a vast right-wing — or left-wing — conspiracy that he dropped the way he did?
We always hear that the most exciting two minutes in sports is the Kentucky Derby, but I’m starting to think it’s when another Knicks heads for the locker room.
Anybody wonder how things would have played out for the Knicks and Pistons if it hadn’t been for that no-call on Tim Hardaway Jr. at the end of Game 4?
Here is what Aaron Judge continues to do, almost on a daily basis:
Make his greatness start to seem almost routine.
Who does the guy think he is, Jalen Brunson?
Did anybody else notice that coming into the weekend the best record in the American League belonged to the Tigers?
It’s easy to forget how close they were to the American League Championship Series, and a date with the Yankees, last October:
Game 5 against the Guardians in their division series against them, Tarik Skubal on the mound.
Then Skubal gave up a grand slam to Lane Thomas in the middle of the game, and that was that.
But the Tigers finished 31-13 in 2024.
Then began 2025 at 20-12.
The math on that says that A.J. Hinch’s kids have been as good as anybody over the last half-season of baseball.
By the way?
When you’re getting all giddy over mock drafts a year from now, it’s probably going to be useful to keep Shedeur Sanders in mind.
Hey, if teams needing a quarterback really thought he was the second coming of Jayden Daniels, everything else about the young man would have just been noise.
Maybe Nico Harrison isn’t the dumbest guy at the end of the bar for trading Luka after all.
Somehow JJ Redick, who left himself wide-open to second-guessing because of some of the decisions he made during the Lakers-Timberwolves series, acted insulted that anybody would questions some of those decisions.
There is no working play-by-play announcer who captures the big moment better than Mike Breen does, and he proved it again on Thursday night with his call on Brunson’s 3 to win the Knicks-Pistons series.
I actually thought we might get the first triple “bang” in history.
Jack Draper, young Brit, might win Wimbledon this year.
It’s about to become official than we can call off the prayer vigil for Juan Soto.
I wouldn’t let Pete Hegseth run a zone defense.
I think I read somewhere that Bill Belichick met his 24-year-old girlfriend when he signed a book for her.
What, her History book?
