Knicks' Jalen Brunson gets real on Tom Thibodeau's rotations

Despite being favored, the New York Knicks couldn’t keep their foot on the gas and make it to the NBA Finals. The second seed in the Eastern Conference lost to a faster and healthier Indiana Pacers team.

Health has always been an issue for Tom Thibodeau’s teams. He wears his players out by playing them heavy minutes, up to the point where some of them end up struggling with chronic injuries later in their careers.

However, Jalen Brunson won’t badmouth his coach. If anything, he believes Thibodeau has done an outstanding job of instilling that hardnosed and physical defensive mindset on the team.

Jalen Brunson Has Tom Thibodeau’s Back

“I think Thibs has the same mindset we do as a team. Thibs is the reason why we have that mindset,” Bruson said. “Thibs is the reason why night in and night out, we fight to the best of our abilities, even though things may not be in our favor, result-wise. He makes sure that we have that mindset night in and night out.”

Brunson is well aware of the criticism, and he knows his coach is to. Still, the players are all on the same page, and they would run through a brick wall for their coach:

“So I think he’s evolved by just (pause), he sees everything that everyone says,” Brunson said. “I think when it comes to us, we don’t really care what the people on the outside think of us. We don’t care what people say, positive or negative. We go forward with what we believe is the best course of action inside this building inside the organization and so on. I think the way that he has evolved is that his players in that locker room have his back no matter what.”

Thibs always gets his players to buy into his philosophy. Also, it wasn’t his fault this time, as they were already missing Julius Randle, OG Anunoby, Mitchell Robinson, and Bojan Bogdanovic.

Hopefully, the Knicks will be able to add more depth to their team in the offseason, and the players won’t suffer from the wear and tear of this season going forward.