Days after the New York Knicks finished their deepest run in the NBA playoffs in a quarter-century, they've fired their coach, the team announced Tuesday.
Tom Thibodeau, who coached the Knicks for five seasons, is out after a 226-174 overall record, including 24-23 in the postseason. New York advanced to its first Eastern Conference Finals since 2000 this spring but lost in six games to the Indiana Pacers.
The Knicks had not made the playoffs in seven consecutive seasons before Thibodeau was hired in 2020 to bring the team back to relevance. The Knicks made the playoffs in four of his five seasons, and the second round in each of the last three, but the team, in announcing his firing, effectively sent the message that the standard of success had since changed to winning the franchise's first NBA championship since 1973.
"Our organization is singularly focused on winning a championship for our fans," said Leon Rose, the team's president, in a statement.
This postseason saw all of New York's weaknesses and strengths on display. It trailed in 12 of its 18 playoff games but also engineered multiple double-digit comebacks, including a pair of 20-point rallies to stun the Boston Celtics, the defending champions, during the second round.
Thibodeau's exit isn't the end of the difficult questions facing Knicks leadership, who must still decide whether the roster that made the NBA's final four in 2025 is good enough to make the Finals in 2026. The team's decision to trade for All-Star big man Karl-Anthony Towns and versatile forward Mikal Bridges last summer did not yield a seamless starting lineup, with Knicks starters performing at the second-worst rate of the eight lineups to play at least 100 playoff minutes together. Thibodeau attempted to correct that lineup's struggles midway through the Eastern Conference Finals, but to no avail.
