June 3, 2021: The Knicks Knocked

I haven’t been watching the NBA playoffs, except for a few minutes of the Knicks games here and there. Of course, with Thibs, Taj, and Derrick playing for New York, I wanted them to do well. Welp, the Knicks got knocked from the playoffs by the Hawks on Wednesday night at MSG. I’m fine with it.

What I’m not fine with is the Thibs slander that is coming from different Bulls fans across Twitter. I mean, some real stupid shit. You cannot convince me that Thibs is not a great coach. He is, period. Next to Phil Jackson, he was the best I’ve ever seen. If you still want to blame him for Derrick Rose’s injury, go ahead; I don’t. Sure, is Thibs a little old school, which I guess means not handling these divas today in the NBA with kid gloves, yes; I love that. I guess I missed the part where not playing your hardest every game was acceptable. The fact that the Thibs Bulls played their asses off every night was very much appreciated, and very much attributed to Thibs’ coaching style. If this style has caused injuries, then why across the entire NBA have injuries been happening more than ever when most coaches DO subscribe to the whole load management bullshit? Riddle me that.

The fact that the Bulls never won it all with Thibs as coach was not his fault. Again, you want to blame him for DRose’s injury? So if he was not playing at that point in that game when the Bulls had Game 1 in hand against the Sixers, you’re going to tell me it wouldn’t have happened? That’s a hard one for me to buy. Sure, hindsight is easy; he should have NOT been on the court at that time, duh. But at the time, the Bulls were flexing… kicking the shit out of the Sixers in the first game of their playoff series, after getting knocked out by the Heat (paying their dues) the previous year, making a statement on their way to the NBA Finals run. I was loving it…. then IT happened. And when IT happens, people always have to look to assign blame; Thibs is the easy choice here. I don’t blame Thibs. I hate that the injury happened; it DID derail our title run. It’s just one of those things… it wasn’t the first, nor will it be the last injury to derail a season. It sucked.

I guess one of the biggest indications that Thibs was a great coach was how his players love him, or at least the players that aren’t a bunch of babies; it looks like he’s found some more out in New York that appreciate him. I don’t follow the Knicks closely obviously, but based on their performance this year, I think he’s establishing something there. Heading into the postseason with Julius Randle as your #1, and version 2 of DRose as your #2 apparently, doesn’t feel like a long term winning strategy. But add some talent to that roster… because really, isn’t that what it’s all about, especially in the NBA. Star power. You have to have THE guy, or a couple guys, to bring home the hardware; at the end of the day, it’s not the coaching that pushes you over the edge, is it? I love Phil and all, and I do believe he was an outstanding coach, but take away Jordan… and then with the Lakers, take away Kobe and Shaq… wait they did win one without Shaq right? Anyways, you get my point. A great coach is important, but it’s not THE most important thing, right? I know a shitty coach can really hurt you though…

Still, I hate seeing the Thibs slander; love that guy. Now, I’m OK with Donovan right now, and I’d much rather see more talent added to OUR roster than the Knicks (DRose anyone?), but I wish Thibs well… just not when we play against him. Maybe we can get back to some classic Bulls Knicks playoff matchups the next couple years, with the same results as before, except for 1994? Now back to your regularly scheduled NBA playoff programming where the “best player” in the league walks out on his team with 5 minutes to go in the game…