New York Knicks: 3 issues for Tom Thibodeau to address

1. The defense

Tom Thibodeau is a defensive genius who’s going to develop Mitchell Robinson into a Defensive Player of the Year. Yada yada yada championship.

Just kidding. But if you don’t get that one I don’t know what to tell you. Of course, defense is the most important thing. The Knicks defense stinks, and they just hired someone who can actually fix it — he says blissfully — or at least restore some level of respectability to it.

New York’s defense used to be one of the most revered in the Association. Thibodeau remembers those days well because he was there. Much has been made about the way Thibodeau allocates minutes and his record at developing players, but the Knicks just hired one of the most successful head coaches in recent NBA history.

(I almost made it through this entire piece without talking about player development. I’m proud of that.)

That success was built on defense in Chicago.  In Thibodeau’s debut season, the Bulls ranked first in defensive rating and opponent effective field goal percentage. They were a juggernaut, and that never stopped.

The Thibodeau Bulls had one of the two best defensive ratings in the league three out of five seasons and never finished lower than 11th in the almighty defensive metric. I know Thibodeau doesn’t place a premium on the 3-pointer offensively, but he values it on defense. His Bulls teams never finished lower than fourth in opponent effective field goal percentage.

With Robinson and Frank Ntilikina, Thibodeau has two players he can build a defense around. Robinson is already one of the league’s best shot-blockers, and with Thibodeau at the helm, those mental mistakes should be drilled out of the big man.

Mitch was a big part of the Knicks ranking 28th in personal fouls per game this season. The Thibodeau Bulls always played smart defense. They ranked top-five in that category during three of Thibodeau’s five seasons in Chicago and never ranked lower than 12th overall.

The Knicks were 28th in opponent’s 3-point makes and 29th in opponent’s 3-point percentage which is even more unacceptable considering they were such a horrible shooting team themselves. New York ranked 30th in 3-point makes, 29th in attempts, and 27th in percentage.

That can’t be what Thibodeau walks into. Steve Mills did a poor job assembling a roster that Leon Rose will need to remake in Thibodeau’s image. The Bulls didn’t make mistakes because they had smart defenders like Luol Deng, Joakim Noah, and Taj Gibson. Thibodeau will need more guys like that to make things work in New York.