Knicks fire coach after Eastern Conference finals loss

The New York Knicks fired coach Tom Thi­bodeau on Tues­day just days af­ter their first trip to the East­ern Con­fer­ence fi­nals in 25 years, a per­son with knowl­edge of the de­ci­sion told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press.

The Knicks were elim­i­nat­ed by the In­di­ana Pac­ers with a loss in Game 6 on Sat­ur­day night. They then de­cid­ed to move on from Thi­bodeau, who led them to the post­sea­son in four of his five sea­sons in New York.

The de­ci­sion was made by team pres­i­dent Leon Rose with ap­proval from own­er Jim Dolan, the per­son told the AP on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause no an­nounce­ment had been made. The fir­ing was first re­port­ed by ES­PN.

It’s a strange de­ci­sion by the Knicks, who had been one of the league’s worst fran­chis­es for most of the 2000s un­til Thi­bodeau was hired in 2020. He prompt­ly led the Knicks to the play­offs in his first sea­son, win­ning his sec­ond NBA Coach of the Year award, and they have been a sol­id con­tender in the East in re­cent sea­sons.

Their big break­through came in 2024-25, when they knocked off de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Boston in the sec­ond round to reach the con­fer­ence fi­nals for the first time since 2000 — when Thi­bodeau was an as­sis­tant un­der Jeff Van Gundy.

Af­ter they were elim­i­nat­ed Sat­ur­day, cap­tain Jalen Brun­son ex­pressed his sup­port for Thi­bodeau, bristling at a ques­tion about whether he be­lieved the coach was right for the team.

Three days lat­er, Thi­bodeau was gone with a 226-174 record in New York. He has the fourth-most wins by a Knicks coach.

Thi­bodeau faced crit­i­cisms that his hard-dri­ving style and over­re­liance on his starters wore down his play­ers, the same ones that have fol­lowed him since the be­gin­ning of his head coach­ing ca­reer in Chica­go. But his ways seemed to be work­ing in New York.

The Knicks hadn’t won a play­off se­ries since 2013 but now have done it in three straight sea­sons. They went 50-32 in 2023-24 and fol­lowed that with a 51-31 record this sea­son.

But the per­son said the or­gan­i­sa­tion felt there was a need for a new voice when the Knicks try again to end their lengthy cham­pi­onship drought. They won their sec­ond and last ti­tle in 1973.

NEW YORK (AP) —

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