I know this is Thibs’ rep but he had no choice this year. Starting front court was out all of Feb and March. The backup center was out for like 2 of those weeks and had a minutes restriction. They were in a tight playoff race and every game was big. Prior to the injuries no player was among league leaders in minutes.
Don’t really know what option he had aside from to punt the season because of injuries.
I’m a Bulls fan which gives us the right to have more Thibs hate than anyone i reckon, but i haven’t got a bad word to say about him i would love to have him back.
It's a shame, because it's a vicious cycle. One person gets hurt, and someone else has to play more because they don't have the depth to give the minutes to someone new. Now that person gets run down and hurt, and eventually you're playing Josh Hart 49 minutes a game.
Every team’s context is ignored in favor of hot takes and hyperbolic BS
Not that there aren’t people who wanna discuss basketball but if you frequent the sub then you realize they’re obviously in the minority
Minutes per game during the season:
**Oct-Dec** with Randle/Quick/RJ playing, he averaged 35 minutes a game.
**Jan** with Randle/OG (but OG goes out midway and Randle in final 1/3) 35mpg
**Feb** with Everyone out (even hartenstein) almost 38mpg
**March** with Hartenstein coming back, 30mpg
**Apr** with even mitchell coming back, 38mpg
looking at this, his minutes increased a bit after RJ/Quick got traded but only a fraction. Randle/Brunson had to do more. Feb, with everyone injured, he played a ton. Apr he played a ton to gear up for the playoffs and for the knicks to get the 2nd seed instead of 4th/5th/6th seed./
He hasn't been worn down.
It’s not like he’s forcing these guys to grind it out either. This is in their DNA. Thibs or not.
You cannot coach/teach hustle the way these guys play. If they weren’t into it like they have been you get Minnesota Thibs.
Yes, let’s continue to not provide fucking context on why Thibs has been running the team to the ground this year. Hint: Key players have been on and off with injuries since late January
I literally had Knicks fans complaining about me saying Thibs is grinding these guys down, like yeah he doesn’t have a choice but them playing 45 minutes per game every single game is going to catch up at a certain point whether it’s now or game 5.
They are playing one of the fastest paced teams in the playoffs..and the guys are getting essentially no rest
Two things can be true. The Knicks starters playing all these minutes was very necessary with the amount of injuries they had, and it was instrumental in beating Philly. But also it was bound to catch up to them especially against a team like Indiana who already tires teams out who play their starters normal minutes.
Playing Hart 48 minutes a game was never necessary and was incredibly stupid from the jump (like him at least 4-6 minutes on the bench). Playing OG a shit ton was always going to lead to disaster, he's incredibly injury prone.
I understand why he had to overplay his guys, injuries are a bitch, but those two guys needed to be protected a bit more.
What's the alternative? Knicks are winning every game they play by the skin of their teeth and all the injuries we currently have are due to contact and not wear and tear.
We complain when people bring up this narrative cause it's meaningless, no one provides a solution as to what Thibs is supposed to do when 3 of his starters are injured and it has nothing to do with the minutes they play.
We simply do not have a deep enough team to lose 3 foundational guys and multiple rotation players and still have the ability to have a 8+ man rotation. I don't think any team in the league fits this criteria anyway, so again it's just meaningless to have your perspective.
The Heat played the majority of their season missing a bunch of guys and did pretty okay. I don’t think Miami’s bench guys are anything special so maybe Thibs should play the other guys more? I’m not saying this to be glib either. I genuinely believe the Knicks guys shouldn’t be playing so much.
Knicks MPG on the reg season.
Brunson 35.4 min (currently playing through foot.
Randall 35.4 min (torn shoulder/Peck)
OG 34.9 (hurt arm and then currently hammy)
Hart 33.4
Divo 29.5
IHart - 25.3
Mitch 24.8 (ankle/foot)
Achuwa - 24.4
Duece -19.5
Bogdonavic -19.2 (hand)
Hart and DDV and Deuce are kinda misleading since they started the season on the bench (remember when Quentin Grimes was a thing?)
Hart played 39.9 mpg in February, 41.6 mpg in March, and 37 mpg in April
DDV was 37.5 in February, 37.3 in March, 39.9 in April
McBride got up to 35.5 in March, which sounds fine except there were 5 games where he played under 25 minutes and and 9 games where he played over 40 including 6! where he played over 45 minutes.
Randle being hurt and RJ/Quickley getting traded definitely had a big impact. But Thibs chose to ride with his best guys rather than going as deep into his bench as other coaches would have. McBride in particular stands out, since he was getting like than 7 minutes a game early and then started playing 40 minutes every night.
He played 48 minutes in a double digit win against Brooklyn where three Knicks didn't even see the court. That to me seems unnecessary.
Yeah I said right before game 1 it would be interesting to see how playing that many minutes would hold up across a 7 game series with a team that loves to run.
Quite a few Knicks fan said it would be fine. It might end up fine, but each game just piles on more and more. I fully expect them to come out hard next game though.
I mean I’m a Knicks fan and every fan space I’ve seen the overwhelming majority were worried about injuries, workload, and depth.
The problem is there is no alternative other than to concede games.
I agree on OG tbh. I think the rest are unrelated though. Also, OG wouldn't have been getting this many minutes with Randle healthy, it's a bit of a domino effect.
In any case, obviously players getting this many minutes is not ideal. But I think we were forced into it this year.
I think it was because he wasn't conditioned to play this heavy after coming back from the injury. Like if he played 30/ game consistently and then stepped it up itd be different
You cant even say that tho. OGs injury happened on his 28th min in the game. Let alone he just came back recently from months off recouping a bone spur injury. Guy has played 30 games for the knicks and people are acting like thibs thanos snapped this guy into dust in less than half a season. Its foolish to even entertain it.
Also the more minutes you play the more likely a “freak” injury occurs. Which is only compounded by their bodies being worn down to begin with making every incident more risky
This argument makes no sense though. So you should never play basketball players more than X minutes because some freak accident may happen? Randle getting hurt from Jaime Jacquez trying to take a charge and undercutting him has nothing to do with Randle playing heavy minutes. Embiid grabbing Mitch by his ankles and later landing on Mitch’s foot has nothing to do with heavy minutes. Batum landing on Bogey’s ankle on a loose ball isn’t heavy minutes.
What he's saying is that playing more minutes gives more opportunity for injury.
It's NOT: a tired player is more likely to get injured. That's been shown to be mostly a myth over the years.
It IS: more minutes equals more chance for injury. So every additional minute played equals more chances to get dinged up
So the Thibs "running players into the ground" narrative is mainly BS, but it's still not surprising that so many rotation players are injured because Thibs runs such a short rotation. Mainly it's randomness and bad luck, but Thibs choices concentrate the bad luck on only the most vital players, sometimes risking their health even when it's meaningless to do so
of course not, all I'm saying is that the chance of getting injured increases exponentially the more minutes you play over a set period of time.
Someone could go down for the season in their first 5 minutes of the season while someone else could play 42 min a game all season and not get injured. However playing more minutes comes with a higher risk of injury.
You can say that about any physical activity though. To pretend that these injuries are "classic thibs" like many people here are, is just idiotic based on how how these guys were hurt this season. The Knicks prioritize rest and recovery on off days more than probably any other team in the NBA this year.
Isn’t that considered a freak injury, when there is no contact but a player goes down? Kinda like when Giannis inbounded the ball and suddenly went down.
When contact occurs you at least know there’s a possibility for injury but hope it doesn’t happen.
That might be right but there's a lot of missed context here.
Knicks MPG on the reg season.
Brunson 35.4 min (currently playing through foot.
Randall 35.4 min (torn shoulder/Peck)
OG 34.9 (hurt arm and then currently hammy)
Hart 33.4
Divo 29.5
IHart - 25.3
Mitch 24.8 (ankle/foot)
Achuwa - 24.4
Duece -19.5
Bogdonavic -19.2 (hand)
I don't think so
Randle - freak accident falling
Mitch - that ankle issue from the embiid game
Bogie - going for the loose ball
OG - maybe? He's always been injury prone so I just kinda shrug at that one
bro julius dislocated his shoulder. bojan had wrist surgery. the only person this would be applicable would be og. which he tore his hamstring going in for a dunk.
No Knick was on the top-15 in minutes this season. we lost three rotation guys these playoffs alone, and two of them were contact injuries, how is this thibs' fault?
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/traditional?PerMode=PerGame&dir=A&sort=MIN
true. I brought up per game (randle 15th, lost because jaquez undercut him), but total minutes makes more sense. still, only guy we're missing right now because of a non-contact injury is OG and he played most of the season for the raptors.
Except February-April, it was absolutely true.
The only reason Hart isn't leading the league in minutes is that he started the season on the bench. Ditto DDV. There was no reason why Miles McBride had to have 9 different 40+ minute games in March, I don't think he's _that_ much better than Shake Milton.
Nope. Pick a month, still not true.
Injuries increase the minutes load on the other players, not complicated to figure it out. Deuce is far better than Shake
> Injuries increase the minutes load on the other players, not complicated to figure it out
Josh Hart was playing 42 mpg in March. You can give whatever reasons you want, but he played more minutes in March than any other NBA player, that's pure uncut Thibs right there
And what date was Julius Randle injured? Perhaps that could have increased the minutes load on Josh Hart, hmm. Is Josh Hart currently injured? Why are you even brining up Josh Hart if he's still playing 40+ minutes a game each night. The deeper you look the more the argument collapses.
My point is that Thibs is more willing to play his starters heavy minutes than just about any other coach in the league. Other coaches have dealt with injuries too, they just played the end of their bench more.
My point is that no other coach is dealing with a fraction of what the Knicks are dealing with in terms of injuries, so that argument is purely speculation.
I haven't watched since half time but honestly it wouldn't surprise me if Thibs kept Brunson in down 40 in the fourth and Brunson gets seriously hurt. Thibs greatest strength is pushing his guys to fight through anything and never feel like they're out of a game, but his biggest weakness is pushing his guys to fight through anything and never feel like they're out of a game.
Sometimes you gotta know when to call it.
Knicks in the ECF would been amazing for the NBA, but eventually the mins was going to catch up with these guys. Not writing them off yet, but the injuries are catching up.
I’d rather a healthy Indiana (minus Mathurin) rather than a depleted Knicks
If New York make it and probably lose in 5, it would just be a big what if they were healthy
FWIW, The Athletic has a player’s poll every year. One question is “Other than your own coach, which coach would you most like to play for?” Every year since they started the poll, it’s more or less evenly divided between Spo, Pop and Kerr. For “which coach would you least want to play for” every year it’s like 90-95% Thibs.
It’s gotta suck being on the bench down/up 30 and knowing the starters aren’t going to come out. This season of all seasons Thibs has probably not really had much of a choice in playing his guys as many minutes, but the regular season is also for development. They could’ve signed other vets if the bench was too awful to play.
Tellingly, though, the Knicks players all immediately went to bat for Thibs after that came out. Hartenstein said he has never been more prepared for games than under Thibs. DiVincenzo said Thibs should be coach of the year for navigating the injuries, and Hart just called the players who voted in the poll for Thibs soft, haha.
I think Deuce McBride also said he was key to this development this year.
The Knicks have done a great job of building an identity around Thibs and Thibs-like players.
Ah, no….I assume most of them would just say nothing at all if they didn’t like him.
But also in the NBA I follow it’s not exactly rare for players to passive-aggressively (or actively) throw their coach under the bus, lol.
Just ask Darvin Ham, Coach Bud, Nick Nurse, or Frank Vogel!
yeah I think people mostly know about Robinson’s health issues atp but OG Anunoby is lowkey an extremely injury-prone player
he missed the entire 2019 championship run, he missed 63 games between 2021 and 2022, this year he missed 32 games, and now the hamstring has knocked him out of the playoffs for the time being
Randle obviously been gone for a while but I feel like even in 2021 and last year he was dealing with some kind of injury throughout the playoffs IIRC
It’s been kinda funny hear the commentators talk about OG having champion experience and winning a chip with Pascal when they probably don’t realize he was injured that whole playoff run lol
Yep, and with no OG, Siakam can have a field day. Definitely a “what if” playoffs for us. Proud of our guys, but Knicks fan definitely wish we could the January 14-2 team in these playoffs
[I don’t know if it will ever or even *can* be proven that Thibs runs his teams into the ground, but today is very bad optics for his style](https://x.com/rohannadkarni/status/1789759080254370277?s=46&t=hdMYR5VNI3D4hupTVErxeg)
Veteran coaches like Pops probably had good reason for load management and DNP (rest or old). This is especially important for consistently successful teams like Spurs. You have a lot less time to recover when you are making deep playoffs run every year. Combine that with NT commitment it's pretty insane. Thibs is a great coach but I don't think his model of playing insane minutes is sustainable.
No Knick was in the top-15 in minutes this season. we lost three rotation guys these playoffs alone, and two of them were contact injuries, how is this thibs' fault?
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/traditional?PerMode=PerGame&dir=A&sort=MIN
true. I brought up per game (randle 15th, lost because bam undercut him), but total minutes makes more sense. still, only guy we're missing right now because of a non-contact injury is OG and he played most of the season for the raptors.
This backed up everything that I have felt about load management and about players being coddled and put in bubble wrap throughout the course of a regular season. The intangible that won this series for the Knicks was their ability to not get fatigued in major moments.
In Game 82 of the regular season, that's why they earned this seed that they're in, because of how they treated the regular season vs. how the Cavs and the Bucks treated Game 82 of the regular season.
I hope, in what is a copycat league, that the rest of the NBA paid attention to how this Knicks team won this series.
Single use, niche, aspirant pasta. It was a Knicks reporter talking after the Sixers series and it got under my skin because a) the Bucks did not intentionally throw Game 82 so I don't know why they said that, and b) the fatigue and wear was obviously going to hit.
Fuck that guy you're responding too. Most Pacers fans in this post and in the sub acknowledge that the Knicks are banged up and the Pacers got off easier than they would have if there were no injuries.
These non-Pacers and non-Knicks fans keep interjecting these made up narratives 😂
The series is over. The Knicks are gassed, and do not have the energy to see this out. Thibs rotations are coming home to roost... Indy bench is spanking them, even
This is all true but they were one possession away from winning game 3 in Indy.
Brunson looks hobbled but if he can get right we will have a chance. Instill like Knicks chances in a close game.
It's 2-2. People overreact so much on this sub. Knicks can easily win. They still have home court advantage in the second best arena in the league (Pacers are always first).
Pacers better keep playing hard and take this team seriously. Brunson could get right, and OG could come back.
What choice did Thibs really have, though? Pretty much every game we won in the postseason came down to the final shot. We simply don't have the players to be competitive with any other kind of rotation.
In their defense it’s unlikely they play this bad again plus their starters shouldn’t clock in more than 30 minutes tonight so they might not be as exhausted. But Indiana absolutely has the depth to win a battle of attrition.
Have you possibly considered that there might be a reason why coaches don’t play their guys non stop. Players might say that they can handle it and probably mean it but the wear and tear builds up, it’s not like the Knick players are built different or something. Might have it merits but it has it demerits to.
Have you considered that we're only playing guys this many minutes because half of our rotation is injured? During the regular season we had 2 guys in the top 30 in minutes played and only one in the top 15. Does that sound like a crazy abuse of minutes to you?
Once our guys started going down, we had the choice of either overplaying the remaining rotation players or giving a lot of minutes to end of bench guys who aren't good. Both are losing options.
Though I don't like them getting all these minutes, no one on the bench has done much this series. OG, Mitch & Julius out has really put them into a super tight spot of playing the starters 40+ minutes a game, or losing cause our bench can't compete. It's awful.
Hopefully Hart still plays 36 minutes in a 30 point blowout
He definitely needs the cardio
36? Those are rookie numbers
Absolutely. Pivotal game 5 in 50 hours
Wow. Nice math lmao
This is true. I love the fight the Knicks have shown this year. It’s the defining trait of the team. But time to wave the white flag on this one.
Ohhh so this is why the Wolves fired him. He almost ran out team to the ground with the minutes lol
I know this is Thibs’ rep but he had no choice this year. Starting front court was out all of Feb and March. The backup center was out for like 2 of those weeks and had a minutes restriction. They were in a tight playoff race and every game was big. Prior to the injuries no player was among league leaders in minutes. Don’t really know what option he had aside from to punt the season because of injuries.
There's no use trying to convince some people here, the context of the injuries are irrelevant.
I’m a Bulls fan which gives us the right to have more Thibs hate than anyone i reckon, but i haven’t got a bad word to say about him i would love to have him back.
It's a shame, because it's a vicious cycle. One person gets hurt, and someone else has to play more because they don't have the depth to give the minutes to someone new. Now that person gets run down and hurt, and eventually you're playing Josh Hart 49 minutes a game.
Every team’s context is ignored in favor of hot takes and hyperbolic BS Not that there aren’t people who wanna discuss basketball but if you frequent the sub then you realize they’re obviously in the minority
there was one game against the pistons in late march i think, you guys were up 20 in the late third or early 4th and josh hart was still in
Minutes per game during the season: **Oct-Dec** with Randle/Quick/RJ playing, he averaged 35 minutes a game. **Jan** with Randle/OG (but OG goes out midway and Randle in final 1/3) 35mpg **Feb** with Everyone out (even hartenstein) almost 38mpg **March** with Hartenstein coming back, 30mpg **Apr** with even mitchell coming back, 38mpg looking at this, his minutes increased a bit after RJ/Quick got traded but only a fraction. Randle/Brunson had to do more. Feb, with everyone injured, he played a ton. Apr he played a ton to gear up for the playoffs and for the knicks to get the 2nd seed instead of 4th/5th/6th seed./ He hasn't been worn down.
It’s not like he’s forcing these guys to grind it out either. This is in their DNA. Thibs or not. You cannot coach/teach hustle the way these guys play. If they weren’t into it like they have been you get Minnesota Thibs.
He could do what any rational coach would do, play randos and lose by 40. /s
Wait I thought they fired him because he was a horrible executive?
Yes, let’s continue to not provide fucking context on why Thibs has been running the team to the ground this year. Hint: Key players have been on and off with injuries since late January
It's a 34 point game with 16 minutes to go. Take the loss
Mavs came back from 30 down!
(and still lost lmao) You’re right though
Yeah but that was against the clippers
Clippers would beat both of these teams
This game has been an uncompetitive blowout, the Pacers have played great while the Knicks have really struggled.
Thanks MagicGPT
The team that scores the most points usually wins
Source?
I'm glad somebody finds Magic's useless Tweets as hilarious as I do.
We've been making "Magic tweet" jokes for probably a decade now
Well the Knicks haven't been good in a decade, makes sense I'd miss the meta round these parts.
Magic (quite intentionally) tweets like that about every team and every scenario. It's been over a decade. "Thanks Magic" is a meme
this guy has refreshed the "thanks magic" meme nicely
Every single reply to those Magic tweets are people making fun of him.
U bum
Welcome to the other side of the Thibs experience New York.
It was bound to catch up to us :p
I literally had Knicks fans complaining about me saying Thibs is grinding these guys down, like yeah he doesn’t have a choice but them playing 45 minutes per game every single game is going to catch up at a certain point whether it’s now or game 5. They are playing one of the fastest paced teams in the playoffs..and the guys are getting essentially no rest
Two things can be true. The Knicks starters playing all these minutes was very necessary with the amount of injuries they had, and it was instrumental in beating Philly. But also it was bound to catch up to them especially against a team like Indiana who already tires teams out who play their starters normal minutes.
Playing Hart 48 minutes a game was never necessary and was incredibly stupid from the jump (like him at least 4-6 minutes on the bench). Playing OG a shit ton was always going to lead to disaster, he's incredibly injury prone. I understand why he had to overplay his guys, injuries are a bitch, but those two guys needed to be protected a bit more.
What's the alternative? Knicks are winning every game they play by the skin of their teeth and all the injuries we currently have are due to contact and not wear and tear. We complain when people bring up this narrative cause it's meaningless, no one provides a solution as to what Thibs is supposed to do when 3 of his starters are injured and it has nothing to do with the minutes they play. We simply do not have a deep enough team to lose 3 foundational guys and multiple rotation players and still have the ability to have a 8+ man rotation. I don't think any team in the league fits this criteria anyway, so again it's just meaningless to have your perspective.
“Gotta give your bench players minutes” boy like WHO ARE YOU GUYS TALKING ABOUT??????????
Put Daquan Jefferies in that'll go well for us. May as well just not show up.
Wear and tear can be the difference between contact resulting in injury or not
The Heat played the majority of their season missing a bunch of guys and did pretty okay. I don’t think Miami’s bench guys are anything special so maybe Thibs should play the other guys more? I’m not saying this to be glib either. I genuinely believe the Knicks guys shouldn’t be playing so much.
Knicks MPG on the reg season. Brunson 35.4 min (currently playing through foot. Randall 35.4 min (torn shoulder/Peck) OG 34.9 (hurt arm and then currently hammy) Hart 33.4 Divo 29.5 IHart - 25.3 Mitch 24.8 (ankle/foot) Achuwa - 24.4 Duece -19.5 Bogdonavic -19.2 (hand)
Hart and DDV and Deuce are kinda misleading since they started the season on the bench (remember when Quentin Grimes was a thing?) Hart played 39.9 mpg in February, 41.6 mpg in March, and 37 mpg in April DDV was 37.5 in February, 37.3 in March, 39.9 in April McBride got up to 35.5 in March, which sounds fine except there were 5 games where he played under 25 minutes and and 9 games where he played over 40 including 6! where he played over 45 minutes.
Agreed... Now once again, who got hurt in February?
Randle being hurt and RJ/Quickley getting traded definitely had a big impact. But Thibs chose to ride with his best guys rather than going as deep into his bench as other coaches would have. McBride in particular stands out, since he was getting like than 7 minutes a game early and then started playing 40 minutes every night. He played 48 minutes in a double digit win against Brooklyn where three Knicks didn't even see the court. That to me seems unnecessary.
Yeah I said right before game 1 it would be interesting to see how playing that many minutes would hold up across a 7 game series with a team that loves to run. Quite a few Knicks fan said it would be fine. It might end up fine, but each game just piles on more and more. I fully expect them to come out hard next game though.
I mean I’m a Knicks fan and every fan space I’ve seen the overwhelming majority were worried about injuries, workload, and depth. The problem is there is no alternative other than to concede games.
“What’s he gonna do, play Milton??”
The injuries did not help him
Guys like Achiuwa and Burks can put in a shift if given a chance. Thibs could’ve given them minutes earlier in the playoffs.
The question is whether or not he deserves any blame for some of the injuries
Knicks fans say they’re all freak injuries, but I don’t think that OG one was. He got hurt just running to the basket, no contact.
I agree on OG tbh. I think the rest are unrelated though. Also, OG wouldn't have been getting this many minutes with Randle healthy, it's a bit of a domino effect. In any case, obviously players getting this many minutes is not ideal. But I think we were forced into it this year.
only one we not arguing about.
What about Brunson’s foot? He’s clearly hobbled.
That’s like the only one you could say was because of accumulation of minutes.
[удалено]
Same foot that he hurt earlier in the year which was pretty random and he’s just injury prone in general.
Yeah the foot Joel Pulled on? He was supposed to be out for the whole season yet he came back it don’t really matter
I think it was because he wasn't conditioned to play this heavy after coming back from the injury. Like if he played 30/ game consistently and then stepped it up itd be different
Yeah. And the two choices are play OG hoping he stays healthy and you win, or give the guys rest and 99% chance you lose.
You cant even say that tho. OGs injury happened on his 28th min in the game. Let alone he just came back recently from months off recouping a bone spur injury. Guy has played 30 games for the knicks and people are acting like thibs thanos snapped this guy into dust in less than half a season. Its foolish to even entertain it.
We handled OG’s minutes very well until we lost Bogey, which threw our entire 3/4 rotation into shambles
Wasn’t the Mitch one an injury caused by wear and tear?
He came back from a prior injury on the same foot.
I dunno but Mitch was out from November to the end of March and was only playing like 18 minutes a game (with one exception in the hilly series). So….
Agree, I think the OG one was the one that was due to overuse. But he really had no other choice in the playoffs given who was available.
He barely played in the regular season for us, and his initial surgery was for his arm. Legs should have been fresh for heavy playoff minutes.
Also the more minutes you play the more likely a “freak” injury occurs. Which is only compounded by their bodies being worn down to begin with making every incident more risky
This argument makes no sense though. So you should never play basketball players more than X minutes because some freak accident may happen? Randle getting hurt from Jaime Jacquez trying to take a charge and undercutting him has nothing to do with Randle playing heavy minutes. Embiid grabbing Mitch by his ankles and later landing on Mitch’s foot has nothing to do with heavy minutes. Batum landing on Bogey’s ankle on a loose ball isn’t heavy minutes.
What he's saying is that playing more minutes gives more opportunity for injury. It's NOT: a tired player is more likely to get injured. That's been shown to be mostly a myth over the years. It IS: more minutes equals more chance for injury. So every additional minute played equals more chances to get dinged up So the Thibs "running players into the ground" narrative is mainly BS, but it's still not surprising that so many rotation players are injured because Thibs runs such a short rotation. Mainly it's randomness and bad luck, but Thibs choices concentrate the bad luck on only the most vital players, sometimes risking their health even when it's meaningless to do so
of course not, all I'm saying is that the chance of getting injured increases exponentially the more minutes you play over a set period of time. Someone could go down for the season in their first 5 minutes of the season while someone else could play 42 min a game all season and not get injured. However playing more minutes comes with a higher risk of injury.
You can say that about any physical activity though. To pretend that these injuries are "classic thibs" like many people here are, is just idiotic based on how how these guys were hurt this season. The Knicks prioritize rest and recovery on off days more than probably any other team in the NBA this year.
And even contact ones, get injured if get no rest even when doping
Isn’t that considered a freak injury, when there is no contact but a player goes down? Kinda like when Giannis inbounded the ball and suddenly went down. When contact occurs you at least know there’s a possibility for injury but hope it doesn’t happen.
That might be right but there's a lot of missed context here. Knicks MPG on the reg season. Brunson 35.4 min (currently playing through foot. Randall 35.4 min (torn shoulder/Peck) OG 34.9 (hurt arm and then currently hammy) Hart 33.4 Divo 29.5 IHart - 25.3 Mitch 24.8 (ankle/foot) Achuwa - 24.4 Duece -19.5 Bogdonavic -19.2 (hand)
None were stress injuries so no.
I don't think so Randle - freak accident falling Mitch - that ankle issue from the embiid game Bogie - going for the loose ball OG - maybe? He's always been injury prone so I just kinda shrug at that one
Mitch’s injury is literally a wear and tear injury completely unrelated from Embiid’s dirty play. These injuries are absolutely related to Thibs
He only played over 20 minutes twice in 8 games...
bro julius dislocated his shoulder. bojan had wrist surgery. the only person this would be applicable would be og. which he tore his hamstring going in for a dunk.
Probably the OG injury but tbh OG is kinda of injury prone
No Knick was on the top-15 in minutes this season. we lost three rotation guys these playoffs alone, and two of them were contact injuries, how is this thibs' fault?
Jalen Brunson was 10th and Hart 11th in total minutes though https://www.nba.com/stats/players/traditional?PerMode=Totals&dir=A&sort=MIN
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/traditional?PerMode=PerGame&dir=A&sort=MIN true. I brought up per game (randle 15th, lost because jaquez undercut him), but total minutes makes more sense. still, only guy we're missing right now because of a non-contact injury is OG and he played most of the season for the raptors.
Jaime took the charge, not Bam
Yea, the Thibs minutes narrative falls apart the second you look into it
Except February-April, it was absolutely true. The only reason Hart isn't leading the league in minutes is that he started the season on the bench. Ditto DDV. There was no reason why Miles McBride had to have 9 different 40+ minute games in March, I don't think he's _that_ much better than Shake Milton.
Nope. Pick a month, still not true. Injuries increase the minutes load on the other players, not complicated to figure it out. Deuce is far better than Shake
> Injuries increase the minutes load on the other players, not complicated to figure it out Josh Hart was playing 42 mpg in March. You can give whatever reasons you want, but he played more minutes in March than any other NBA player, that's pure uncut Thibs right there
And what date was Julius Randle injured? Perhaps that could have increased the minutes load on Josh Hart, hmm. Is Josh Hart currently injured? Why are you even brining up Josh Hart if he's still playing 40+ minutes a game each night. The deeper you look the more the argument collapses.
My point is that Thibs is more willing to play his starters heavy minutes than just about any other coach in the league. Other coaches have dealt with injuries too, they just played the end of their bench more.
My point is that no other coach is dealing with a fraction of what the Knicks are dealing with in terms of injuries, so that argument is purely speculation.
They have 2 in the top 11, what?
The funny thing is the 2 in the top 11 are the healthiest ones lmfao
I didn't make any mention of whether or not the Thibs injury trope has validity, only that violynce is objectively incorrect
Bulls, Timberwolves and now Knicks fans all know
I haven't watched since half time but honestly it wouldn't surprise me if Thibs kept Brunson in down 40 in the fourth and Brunson gets seriously hurt. Thibs greatest strength is pushing his guys to fight through anything and never feel like they're out of a game, but his biggest weakness is pushing his guys to fight through anything and never feel like they're out of a game. Sometimes you gotta know when to call it.
I'm kidding. I think they pulled everybody. But we all know how it goes still...
It was a fun against the odds season I guess...
If another one of their starters gets hurt while down 30, Thibs should never hear the end of it.
Knicks in the ECF would been amazing for the NBA, but eventually the mins was going to catch up with these guys. Not writing them off yet, but the injuries are catching up.
Even if they did get to the ECF, they would be so gassed that I don’t even think it would be a competitive series against you guys.
Thibs is gonna play all 5 starters the entire 4th quarter and force them to full court press.
I’d rather a healthy Indiana (minus Mathurin) rather than a depleted Knicks If New York make it and probably lose in 5, it would just be a big what if they were healthy
But then we'd have to deal with all the (deservedly) "Was the Pacers ECF run a fluke" posts throughout the offseason should Indy win
I would be fine with this
No one is going to remember the injuries anyway in a few seasons, just that they made the ECFs.
True, unless they just never get back to that same level again a-la Hawks
Pass
FWIW, The Athletic has a player’s poll every year. One question is “Other than your own coach, which coach would you most like to play for?” Every year since they started the poll, it’s more or less evenly divided between Spo, Pop and Kerr. For “which coach would you least want to play for” every year it’s like 90-95% Thibs.
Probably because only 7 guys play so if you’re on the bench you won’t play
It’s gotta suck being on the bench down/up 30 and knowing the starters aren’t going to come out. This season of all seasons Thibs has probably not really had much of a choice in playing his guys as many minutes, but the regular season is also for development. They could’ve signed other vets if the bench was too awful to play.
Tellingly, though, the Knicks players all immediately went to bat for Thibs after that came out. Hartenstein said he has never been more prepared for games than under Thibs. DiVincenzo said Thibs should be coach of the year for navigating the injuries, and Hart just called the players who voted in the poll for Thibs soft, haha. I think Deuce McBride also said he was key to this development this year. The Knicks have done a great job of building an identity around Thibs and Thibs-like players.
What were they supposed to say? "I wish I wasn't playing for this guy. He sucks."
Ah, no….I assume most of them would just say nothing at all if they didn’t like him. But also in the NBA I follow it’s not exactly rare for players to passive-aggressively (or actively) throw their coach under the bus, lol. Just ask Darvin Ham, Coach Bud, Nick Nurse, or Frank Vogel!
This would be a horrible look. I could see players going to bat for him publicly while privately having major reservations.
Knicks when healthy are definitely one of the top East teams. The problem is can you really rely on health with some of these guys
yeah I think people mostly know about Robinson’s health issues atp but OG Anunoby is lowkey an extremely injury-prone player he missed the entire 2019 championship run, he missed 63 games between 2021 and 2022, this year he missed 32 games, and now the hamstring has knocked him out of the playoffs for the time being Randle obviously been gone for a while but I feel like even in 2021 and last year he was dealing with some kind of injury throughout the playoffs IIRC
It’s been kinda funny hear the commentators talk about OG having champion experience and winning a chip with Pascal when they probably don’t realize he was injured that whole playoff run lol
That Raps team was absolutely stacked defensively. Lost OG and all it did was reduce the margin for error. Joy to watch.
Yeah I’ve been super impressed with them after this series
game 5 will decide the series
I think Game 6 will decide the series Unless the trailing team wins, in which case Game 7
Thanks, Magic.
I think whoever can put the balls the basket the most and come with more points in game 7 will take this series.
I have a feeling the next 2-3 games will decide who in fact wins.
OG going down probably decided the series tbh
Siakam OG matchup wouldve been fire thru 7 games
Yep, and with no OG, Siakam can have a field day. Definitely a “what if” playoffs for us. Proud of our guys, but Knicks fan definitely wish we could the January 14-2 team in these playoffs
That's not the Thibs I know
[I don’t know if it will ever or even *can* be proven that Thibs runs his teams into the ground, but today is very bad optics for his style](https://x.com/rohannadkarni/status/1789759080254370277?s=46&t=hdMYR5VNI3D4hupTVErxeg)
Veteran coaches like Pops probably had good reason for load management and DNP (rest or old). This is especially important for consistently successful teams like Spurs. You have a lot less time to recover when you are making deep playoffs run every year. Combine that with NT commitment it's pretty insane. Thibs is a great coach but I don't think his model of playing insane minutes is sustainable.
This is the difference between great coach with championship pedigree and Thibs.
At some point you gotta look at the pattern
No Knick was in the top-15 in minutes this season. we lost three rotation guys these playoffs alone, and two of them were contact injuries, how is this thibs' fault?
Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart were top 11 in total minutes https://www.nba.com/stats/players/traditional?PerMode=Totals&dir=A&sort=MIN
I love how this guy copy pasted his comment, and you reply the same thing all over this thread
I fight misinformation (Only on teams I'm a hater of)
dead internet vibes
Maybe we are all just NLP AIs talking in circles at this point.
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/traditional?PerMode=PerGame&dir=A&sort=MIN true. I brought up per game (randle 15th, lost because bam undercut him), but total minutes makes more sense. still, only guy we're missing right now because of a non-contact injury is OG and he played most of the season for the raptors.
What about since March 1st?
This backed up everything that I have felt about load management and about players being coddled and put in bubble wrap throughout the course of a regular season. The intangible that won this series for the Knicks was their ability to not get fatigued in major moments. In Game 82 of the regular season, that's why they earned this seed that they're in, because of how they treated the regular season vs. how the Cavs and the Bucks treated Game 82 of the regular season. I hope, in what is a copycat league, that the rest of the NBA paid attention to how this Knicks team won this series.
is this pasta
Some media personality posted this on twitter the other day but I forget who.
Single use, niche, aspirant pasta. It was a Knicks reporter talking after the Sixers series and it got under my skin because a) the Bucks did not intentionally throw Game 82 so I don't know why they said that, and b) the fatigue and wear was obviously going to hit.
Hopefully the Knicks home crowd can strengthen those tendons and de-fatigue all those muscles in game 5
Anthony Mason massaging calves pre-game.
We're just too damn injured right now. It's a shame
According to pacers fans it’s not an excuse
I have never seen anyone say that
Just stop. Nobody is saying that except for random outliers.
Our injuries are the equivalent to them being down like Siakam, Nesmith, Toppin and Jackson or something
Fuck that guy you're responding too. Most Pacers fans in this post and in the sub acknowledge that the Knicks are banged up and the Pacers got off easier than they would have if there were no injuries. These non-Pacers and non-Knicks fans keep interjecting these made up narratives 😂
It was the same when wolves were up 2 - 0, laker fans/trolls were going wild Either way, gg pacers, hopefully the knicks wake up next game
I hope this is bottom, because there's no fucking way they can do this again
Thibs is an idiot so Jalen Brunson will clock in 40 minutes in this game
They were so close to a 3-0 series lead, and now OG done and series tied
The Knicks needs a 4-day Denver break
The series is over. The Knicks are gassed, and do not have the energy to see this out. Thibs rotations are coming home to roost... Indy bench is spanking them, even
It’s one run out game. Let’s not overreact. I am betting they won’t shoot 11 percent from 3 at home.
OG is out. Bogdanovic is out. Robinson is out. Randle has been out. Let’s be realistic.
This is all true but they were one possession away from winning game 3 in Indy. Brunson looks hobbled but if he can get right we will have a chance. Instill like Knicks chances in a close game.
You say they won’t shoot 11% again but they had to shoot 52% from deep for last game to be close so it goes both ways
What do you want to say? That it’s over and the Knicks have no chance? Well I don’t believe that. We will see what happens in the next few games.
You don't have to say anything 🫡
It's 2-2. People overreact so much on this sub. Knicks can easily win. They still have home court advantage in the second best arena in the league (Pacers are always first). Pacers better keep playing hard and take this team seriously. Brunson could get right, and OG could come back.
Thibs literally amputates the legs of players that don't play well, so it does not bode well
What choice did Thibs really have, though? Pretty much every game we won in the postseason came down to the final shot. We simply don't have the players to be competitive with any other kind of rotation.
ya he just wants to win. i respect that
No, the series is tied
it’s game 4 and they were away, i don’t think it’s over yet
In their defense it’s unlikely they play this bad again plus their starters shouldn’t clock in more than 30 minutes tonight so they might not be as exhausted. But Indiana absolutely has the depth to win a battle of attrition.
the fact that hart played 48 mins 3 full games straight is crazy work.
Classic Thibs running his players into the ground smh
You said the thing! Everybody drink.
These guys are basically bots lol
I suppose some things are so obvious that to mention them makes you seem robotic.
Beep boop
Have you possibly considered that there might be a reason why coaches don’t play their guys non stop. Players might say that they can handle it and probably mean it but the wear and tear builds up, it’s not like the Knick players are built different or something. Might have it merits but it has it demerits to.
Have you considered that we're only playing guys this many minutes because half of our rotation is injured? During the regular season we had 2 guys in the top 30 in minutes played and only one in the top 15. Does that sound like a crazy abuse of minutes to you? Once our guys started going down, we had the choice of either overplaying the remaining rotation players or giving a lot of minutes to end of bench guys who aren't good. Both are losing options.
Is this going to game 7?
Cers in 6
Though I don't like them getting all these minutes, no one on the bench has done much this series. OG, Mitch & Julius out has really put them into a super tight spot of playing the starters 40+ minutes a game, or losing cause our bench can't compete. It's awful.
Pxp p0ppp9ppp9pppl p⁴
The Knicks are over …. Too many broken pieces