The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Why Tom Thibodeau DESERVED to be fired by Knicks

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

Jason reacts to the New York Knicks surprisingly firing head coach Tom Thibodeau shortly after the team lost in the Eastern Conference Finals to Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers. He explains why the Knicks were right to move on and how to maximize a team led by Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns. #Volume #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Winning on Clay is an art. The rallies are relentless. And at the French Open, only the toughest survive. I'd know. I competed there for decades. Join me, Renee Stubbs, on the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast for no-nonsense breakdowns of the biggest matches, the toughest players, and the moments that define Roland Garris. She can win.

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Happy Wednesday, everybody. Hope all you guys are having a great week. Well, we were going to be waiting until the NBA finals tipped off tomorrow night, but then Tom Thibodeau got fired. So we got a bonus episode today. I just want to kind of dive into my take on the situation. Some of the realities about how far the Knicks are away from their goals and how a coaching change, I think, kind of falls in line with their ultimate goal of winning.

an NBA championship and kind of separating that from some of the realities of the what it was like having Tom Thibito as coach of the Knicks. So you guys know the Joe before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast fee wherever we get your podcast under Hoops tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,

TikTok, make sure you guys follow us there. And the last but not least in our lives. shows, make sure you guys keep dropping those mailbag questions so we can get to them in our chats at the end of the shows. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the first thing that we have to acknowledge before we go any further is what the Knicks are trying to accomplish. They're trying to win an NBA championship. They view their defeat in the conference finals as a failure. I know that feels weird in the context of them making their first conference finals in over two decades, in defeating the Boston Celtics, which was kind of the goal of the moves that were made last summer, but it's all relative to the Larry O'Brien trophy.

And I'm going to say something that I said right after the Mavs lost in the finals last year. They weren't actually close. Did you guys think the Mavs were close to beating Boston? No. They beat a bunch of teams along the way that were also in that tier below that top tier championship contending tier. But ultimately, when they ran into a team that was, was actually at a championship level, looked like there was a chasm between them.

I would argue there was a pretty significant chasm between them and the Pacers this year, and I think the Pacers have little to no chance to beat the Thunder. So you could argue the Knicks are still not close. From there, you have to start asking yourself, why? Why were the Knicks not close? And this is where I'm seeing a lot of the issues with the roster being brought up,

specifically in defense of Tom Thibodeau. And I think all that's fair. It's really difficult to build a functioning defensive foundation on Carl Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson. There are challenges there. It's all fair. We'll talk more about Kat in a bit. But it's not just the roster.

The Pacers outclass them. And as we mentioned, the Pacers are below the Thunder. So you're several tiers below where you need to be. And if we remove the Celtics series, just take that entire two weeks, set it aside, and look at the entirety of the next season, I would argue they pretty significantly underachieved relative to their talent level. They came into the year with sky high expectations, getting Carl Anthony Towns, getting McHale Bridges, all of a sudden you have one of the more dynamic starting five units in the NBA, and they came right out the gates and got the short. shit kicked out of them by the Boston Celtics. They generally underachieved all season, especially versus the good teams in the NBA. They were 0-10 versus the Celtics, the Thunder, and the Cavs.

They were 6 and 6 against the other 7 teams that were in the top 10 in point differential this year. So they were 0-10 versus the top three teams and 500 against the other good teams in the NBA. They got the three seed, but they finished 10 games. below the two seed, so it was mostly a product of the East being very weak. They had a mediocre showing against the young Pistons team that had them on the rope several times. Knicks fans were incredibly frustrated with the team coming out of that series and going into the Celtic series, and then they got firmly outclassed by the Pacers.

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We created our own podcast called Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys?

I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas.

And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy,

Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last night, a blown call changed the game. Morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines.

We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered. SportsSlice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to SportsSlice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slices Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok.

The French Open is one of the toughest tests in tennis. And I know firsthand because I competed there myself. I'm Renee Stubbs, and on the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast, I'm breaking down everything happening at Roland Garris, every match, every upset, and what it really takes to win on Clay. Jenchian win. I mean, she went down in three to Rabakina, but I'm delighted. She's an outsider to win the French for me. And she likes Clay.

Listen, Lina Rabakina is arguably the best player in the world right now, and I actually can win on any surface, because if she's serving, well, good luck. Consider this your court side seat to the French Open. Listen to the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. And even if we take a closer look at the Celtic series, they faced massive deficits in five of the six games. Now, they pulled that series out on the strength of some incredible runs. but there was also some stuff there with Tatum and Brown kind of falling apart.

I want to be clear, though. The flashes were real. I'm not sitting here saying the Knicks had a bad season and somehow made the conference finals. They made it there with their flashes. When they needed to be great against the pistons, they were great against the pistons. They were unbelievable against the Celtics at the tail end of those games that they pulled out. Even in the Pacer series, there were stretches. I thought for the majority of game one, they look.

like the better team. They had a stretch at the end of game three where they were kind of physically overwhelming for the Pacers. The flashes were real. They were not fluky. I'm not saying this is a bad team. It's just that that's the talent showing. They have all these rangey athletes that can fly around in rotation. Jalen Brunson is still one of the most gifted half court playoff scores in the league. When they were able to keep opponents in the half court, when they were able to keep opponents in the half court, when they contained the ball, when they flew around in rotation and didn't make mistakes, when they rebound and ran off of that stuff, they looked scary good. That's how they made the Eastern Conference finals, despite all of the frustrations throughout

the season. But overall, what prevented them from sustaining that was a lack of attention to detail throughout their daily process. And it made them mistake prone. and in many cases it made them play below what they were capable of. It made them play even when their best players were trying to operate and they were competitive and engaged. It made them operate in a setting that was more difficult than it needed to be.

I thought there were three main areas where they struggled to reach their potential. First of all, on the defensive end of the floor, and this gets more complicated with transition defense, but I want to hit transition defense in a minute. But overall, on the defensive end of the floor, like McHale Bridges came out the gates this year and just wasn't very good at the point of attack. Brunson and Kat were pretty much a disaster on defense the entire season.

They failed to sustain any like consistent defensive level that they needed to reach. Now, one of the details here that's important to remember is Tom Tivodeau was playing all these guys massive minutes. And it was under this like kind of theory that if they played massive minutes, it would condition them for the playoff environment. It was even something that became a talking point as people in the press would ask questions about the minute loads. But the reality is, is that if you're asking a guy to play extremely high minutes relative to the rest of the league throughout an 82 game season,

that player is not going to be able to be as engaged on a possession by possession basis. So all of a sudden, you start to build habits. and those habits are hard to kick. That's why in a must-win game in game six on the road in Indiana, they had their sloppiest game with the details. Your habits are what carry you when you hit adversity. When everything hits the fan and your shot's not falling and the other team's on a big run and the crowd's going crazy

and all of this stuff is just working against you, you have one thing you can fall back on. I'm just going to play hard and I'm habitually focused. on these details that I'm going to do every single time and that will help me restore control of the situation. Instead, the opposite happened. They fell back on their bad habits. And so as a result of that,

when they hit adversity, they actually fell apart. They were unable to sustain because they leaned too much on their top guys in huge minutes and they all practiced playing mediocre basketball all year. Now, does the roster have, a depth issue. Sure. You know, Mitchell Robinson missed a good chunk of the year. Obviously, once you get past the starting five, there's not as much talent, but there were some usable guys there. Deuce McBride's a good player. Obviously, Mitch, when he became available,

really good player. We saw Landra Shamett be useful. We saw Delon Wright, be useful. I think Tibbs missed an opportunity to lean on his depth more in the regular season, not so that he can condition his stars for high minute loads in the playoffs, but so that he could actually teach all of those guys to play with a certain amount of attention to detail throughout the season so that they had these habits in place so that then when they ended up in some adversity in the postseason, they could fall back on those habits. The second piece of it is spacing. This also falls into the concept of attention to detail. I thought spacing was the biggest weakness for the Knicks throughout this postseason run, and it affected them both on the offensive

end of the floor as well as in their transition defense. I'm not going to get into too much detail here because we've done it quite a bit on the show over the course of this series. But to make a long story short, there are simple concepts, simple ideas involving where you need to be when you're off the ball, that one, make help defenders, make harder decisions, that two, put specific guys in situations where they can finish plays, and three, create the actual space for an on-ball player to operate so that he can be comfortable. That's just on the offensive end of the four. Move it to a step further.

That spacing is what allows you to get back in transition defense. I can't tell you how many times in this postseason run, I would see multiple players in and around the paint off the ball while no one's above the break. Or you have a guy driving into a guy in the strong side dunker spot instead of the weak side dunker spot, or a guy standing where he can't be a threat versus another guy who is a shooting threat

standing in the dunker spot. And you're like, this is just making it more difficult than it needs to be. And then you straight up lost the Pacers series in transition. That's where you lost that series. And one of the consistent themes that I saw was a complete lack of understanding of floor balance. To make a long story short,

whenever the ball is moving through a defense, whether it's through the drive or through the pass. As the ball moves through the defense, the off ball guys have to relocate. You can't just stand still, right? So for instance, if I'm driving off the left wing and you're in the right dunker spot and I cross the midline,

you have to relocate to the left dunker spot so that you can pull that help defender away, right? If I cut through along the base, line, then the guy who's in the corner I'm cutting to needs to relocate up to the top of the key. Everyone needs to be whirling around the ball into appropriate spacing. And it's not just play finishing. Play finishing is a big part of it. You don't want to have the above the brake line wide open.

Why? Because if no one's up there, you're making your team easier to guard. You want to have a player situated above the break on the opposite wing so that he is a threat, so that he can pull a defender out there. And if they're going to sink into the paint, you have an easy kickout opportunity. And then, if for whatever reason you miss or you turn the ball over,

having guys above the break, those are literally the dudes who have to get back in transition defense. They lost the Pacer series in many cases because you'd have a guy driving off the top of the key with the guy who set the screen for him rolling off the top of the key, with two guys in the corners and a guy in the dunker spot,

everyone's below the foul line. So not only are you making yourself easy to guard because all five defenders don't have to worry about half of the half court, they don't have to worry about anything above the foul line. And then in addition to that, all it takes is one guy leaking out who gets behind all those five guys

and now you're giving up a dunk. They were a poorly spaced, poorly disciplined basketball team that made it to the conference finals sheerly on the strength of their talent. The third piece of it was offensive variety. The upside of getting a guy like Go Giannobe is he can put the ball on the floor against the mismatch, draw foul, get a bucket. The upside with McHale Bridges, you can come off of a ball screen and look to score.

The upside of having Carl Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson, so you have four players in the starting lineup that are all legitimate shot creators. And there were times where it looked really good. there's, you know, a lot of the times when Jalen Brunson would come out of the game, the ball would move around a little bit more freely and guys would get more involved. I thought in game six of the Pacers series, they finally started to understand like, oh, wait, like these guys can't guard OG and and Obie when he's on the side. Let's go to him more frequently, right?

We saw big stretches of the Celtic series where Mikhail Bridges took over, but there was never a point where you felt like the Knicks were operating like the Pacers operated. Meaning, when you're playing against the Pacers, they just, they didn't, every game looked different. Every night they kind of found the hot hand. On any given night, they might have four or five different guys score 20 points. Because their offense was geared towards keeping everyone involved. Action was constantly moving side to side.

This is modern five-out basketball. Modern five-out basketball is trying to get into multiple actions on the same possession. Getting the ball at the four quickly with pace, getting into that first action. If the first action creates an advantage, you just play drive and kick off of it. If it doesn't create an advantage, it flows into an action on the other side of the floor. The more ball and player movement that you have on any given possession, the more advantages that are naturally created. The more you cultivate an environment where everyone feels like they can be aggressive, the easier it is for everyone to stay in rhythm throughout a game. That is Pacers basketball. That is how they beat you

guys. That is how they're in the finals now. Now, you don't want to go as far as the Pacers did, because you've got Jalen Brunson, and he's one of the best singular offensive talents in our league. But if you don't go trading a bunch of draft picks for a bunch of forwards that are capable of being super versatile offensive players and then marginalize them. Go for Dorian, Finney Smith instead, if that's what you're looking for. This roster was construed. with a lot of aggregate ball handling. Take advantage of it. So taking it back to self-awareness,

you don't have a top-tier superstar. Jalen Brunson is definitely good enough to win a championship as the best player. I think he's proven that it's not like Brunson is the reason why they're losing. But what he's not is the indomitable type of talent that we see at the top of our league. He is not a top-tier superstar. He's not Shegilded Alexander, right? He's not a guy that, regardless of surrounding circumstances, is going to get off. There were times in this Pacer series where Me Smith kind of had him under lock, like, in crunch time.

So, like, accepting that you have kind of a second-tier superstar, your margin for error is smaller. I don't think they'll be able to reach a championship ceiling unless they make a pivot to the coaching staff and the roster. It's going to be both. Again, acknowledging self-awareness that your multiple... tiers below where you need to be. When you're in this coaching search, the two primary things the Knicks have to be looking for is someone who hunts margin,

who hunts the low-hanging fruit in basketball. Someone who understands, we give ourselves a better chance, not just in the regular season, but in the post-season, to win games if we are a team that takes advantage of the low-hanging fruit and that prevents other teams from taking advantage of the low-hanging fruit. that means you force turnovers and you don't turn the ball over.

You corner crash and clear as many offensive rebounds you can within the context of your transition defense while also keeping the opponent off of the offensive glass. Or like it's the pushing in transition whenever you can to get that extra 20% out of every possession while also being a great transition defense that prevents the other team from getting an extra 20% out of every possession.

single possession. These are all readily achievable things that basketball teams can take advantage of. It just has to be drilled down from October through to the middle of April when you start this process. The second piece of it is they need to find someone who can build the offense around a more equal opportunity approach, someone who advocates for maximizing the aggregate offensive talent on this team. and I'll just be really curious to see who they end up tracking down on that front.

And then lastly, before we get out of here, the Carl Anthony Towns thing, I've talked about this before. The problem with Carl Anthony Towns is he is obscenely talented and the upside is there. And there were points in the Pacer series where he kind of just realized no one could guard him and he looked like a force to be reckoned with. But when I watched Game 6 of the Pacer series, he was front and center for the majority. of the issues they were having in their transition defense and in their half-court defense. And not in like a, oh, he's limited kind of way. I've seen some talk about, you know,

his athleticism and his ability to like cover ground and all this sort of stuff. That I think is certainly part of the issue and that'll prevent Kat from ever becoming like a dominant defensive player. But the main reason why he is a bad defensive player is his natural defensive instincts. His overall, he's just kind of aloof. You're above the break, dude. You can't be crashing the offensive glass. You have get back responsibility.

Like, dude, you're in a ball screen with three people and the role man's getting behind. You can't just be dancing out around 25 feet from the basket throwing the worst hedge I've ever seen. There's a certain amount of like, cat just kind of feels like he's freelancing all the time. And so like, okay, if you decide to bring Kat back, you can try to drill that down with a better coach. But the reality is, is we've had multiple stops in his career in big spots where he's struggled to be as attentive to detail as he needs to be to be a strong defensive foundation.

That is to say, I think tying up $50 million in salary on an inconsistent offensive player who is a bad to awful defensive player, who specifically is bad in terms of just his ability to make basic basketball decisions on that end of the floor, I think you're kind of handcuffing yourself if you tie yourself to him. So I do view him as the primary pivot point. But I believe that Jalen Brunson, with Josh Hart and Mikhail Bridges and O.G. And Anobi and a competent coaching staff that has attention to detail that maximizes the overall aggregate offensive talent on this roster, I do believe that championship ceiling is in there.

And it takes a lot of guts to look at a guy in Tibbs who just led the most successful next season in decades, who is beloved by his players, and in general is just a legend of this era of NBA basketball. It takes a lot of guts to sit down there and be like he's not the guy that can bring us to the championship. And I thought it was completely defensible to move on from him. All right, guys, that's all I have for today.

sincerely appreciate you guys for support me and supporting the show. I will see you guys tomorrow night after game one of the NBA finals live on YouTube. I cannot wait. We'll see you guys. Hey guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin.

And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We get to ask other people to do podcasts.

We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL, late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.

This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Winning on Clay is an art.

The rallies are relentless. And at the French Open, only the toughest survive. I'd know. I competed there for decades. Join me, Renee Stubbs, on the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast for no-nonsense breakdowns of the biggest matches, the toughest players, and the moments that define Roland Garris. She's a win. She's an outsider to win the French fame.

And she likes Clay. Listen, Lerabakina is arguably the best player in the world right now, and I actually can win on any surface. Listen to the Renee Stub's tennis podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on, a Mormon polygamist, and an Armenian businessman.

Multi-million dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, a billion dollar fraud. But how long can this alliance last? Tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human.