TOM THIBODEAU UNDERSTOOD the job he had signed up for. He grew up listening to Knicks games on the radio and driving from his family's home in Connecticut to go to home games with his father. In the 1990s, he was a young assistant coach on Jeff Van Gundy's staff, arriving early each morning and afraid to be anything but the last one to leave the building at night.
"I loved being here in the '90s," Thibodeau told ESPN in 2021, during his first season as the franchise's head coach. "There was nothing better than the environment at the Garden.