I think we can all agree that in the Brown vs. Thibs convo:
1) Brown was better at managing minutes in general
-he didn’t coach every game like game 7 of the finals
-he trusted players on the bench during the regular season
-he didn’t really have a long-term doghouse (Exhibit A: Clarkson)
2) Brown was better at getting players to be their best selves in a collaborative, non-alienating way (Exhibit A: KAT)
3) Brown was more willing to go deeper into his coaching “bag” than Thibs on both sides of the ball
4) Brown was quicker to make in-game adjustments
5) Brown was more likely to listen to his players, assistants, and team executives in making adjustments, both in-game and in-series.

One can fairly wonder how Thibs would have done had he coached this team this year and faced the same opponents in the playoffs, especially without the baggage of coaching them the previous years, which I think was an advantage for Brown. I truly believe that the Knicks would have beaten all three EC teams we faced, although perhaps not in such dominant fashion. But I also think that there is less chance that the team would have been as healthy and rested a) going into the playoffs, and b) for each successive round. Our stamina advantage vs. the Spurs was a huge factor in out comebacks. But having to rely on that stamina advantage to come back from significant deficits in all 5 games is not exactly a feather in Brown’s cap. Nor was his bench going utterly silent for most of games 4 and 5. The Spurs were a green team with a green coach, historically green for a finals team. I don’t think it took a genius coach to figure them out. In fact, it was pretty predictable….just look at the pre-series predictions here at KB. But Brown’s coaching was a huge reason why that stamina advantage existed, and that alone would give him the nod over Thibs.

At the end of the day, Brown was awesome and got the job done. He inherited a team that had gone to the conference finals and that had clearly been well coached and took them to another level. Thibs had run his course and deserved to be let go. Dolan did it the right way by getting direct player feedback in player meetings. We don’t really know how keen Leon was on defending his old friend. We do know that he had to scramble to find a suitable replacement, and that he got rebuffed re: his primary targets. We know that he interviewed a bunch of guys in the picked-over bin (and one woman with no NBA coaching experience) and that Mike Brown was not viewed here as a sexy hire. But in retrospect, he turned out to be a perfect fit, maybe the only perfect fit out there. I can’t imagine the team doing better under Jason Kidd, Taylor Jenkins, or Mike Malone, or James Borrego, or Terry Stotts, or any of the other names being thrown around. Brown elevated himself into the top shelf of coaches out there…with Kerr, Spo, Carlisle…and should remain there until proven otherwise.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DaLRSzqRIuI/”

Owen, that was actually pretty damn funny. Thanks for posting it.