Josh Hart rejects 'idiotic' narrative that Tom Thibodeau ran Knicks into the ground

Despite the Knicks winning 50 games in the regular season and grabbing the No. 2 seed in the NBA's Eastern Conference, the year has been marred by a season-long injury crisis. A trend that has, unfortunately, continued to dog the team in the playoffs.

A season of phenomenal play that has only come to a stop through forced time on the sideline: first Mitchell Robinson for 50 games in December, Julius Randle for the season in January and OG Anunoby had extended spells out in January and March during the regular season. And then Bojan Bogdanovic in the opening round before Robinson and Anunoby were again lost to the operating table and training room during the second-round series against the Indiana Pacers.

A familiar culprit was found: head coach Tom Thibodeau and the demanding volume of minutes his charges must play.

For Josh Hart, who has played 441 minutes over the first 10 playoff games this year, the outside narrative is just nonsense.

“You expect ignorance when people have no idea what goes on in this building,” Hart said Tuesday morning ahead of Game 5 against the Pacers.

“People love to have a narrative or label and they love to run with it,” he continued. “None of those guys are here watching us practice. None of those guys are watching what we do. At the end of the day, seventh year of my career, I probably had more off days [than] the other years. We don't go contact in practice, but everyone thinks we do three-hour practices of scrimmaging.”

Former NBA player turned sports talk pundit Paul Pierce was one of those outside voices who to the head coach and “the high minutes and high usage” that he has been known for.

"It looks like a wear and tear of the minutes they're playing and fatigue in the muscles," Pierce said of the foot injury to Jalen Brunson in Game 2 of the series. "Because initially you see a guy gets hurt it's the way he landed or ankle turn or you could see he pulled something. When I see Brunson, that could just be from fatigue in the muscle and stepping the wrong way.”

Brunson, who averaged over 35 minutes in each of his first two seasons in New York and has played 408 minutes in the playoffs, said he is feeling “good” despite the lingering injury and back-to-back defeats in Indiana.

With Anunoby’s hamstring injury that will sideline him for weeks, Pierce said he saw the forward stop and “his leg gave out, that could be just from fatigue of the muscle.”

Chandler Parsons, another former player turned pundit, said the head coach’s style was “why we were concerned initially.“

"Because when injuries do start to happen and things linger and now guys are missing games. And there’s just an obvious, glaring huge minutes being played by them,” Parsons said Monday. “It’s hard not to look at that, right? This is why that players’ poll came out with guys don’t want to play for him because it doesn’t last. You can’t sustain it in such a long season.

“Is he gonna be a fall guy? Are they gonna fall out? No. I think they think ‘Alright, let’s try and maybe manage this a little bit better next year. Let’s use our bench a little bit better, let’s sign some guys that we trust, that Thibs likes in this system and his role.' Not like an Evan Fournier type where Thibs is just not gonna play him. So yeah, I think, in my opinion, it does fall on him.”

Parsons added that he doesn’t believe this will cost Thibodeau his job, but the volume of minutes played needs to be monitored a bit.

Hart is having none of that.

“It's just idiotic to put that on him,” he said of the Knicks’ injuries. “And [Thibodeau’s] not going to say anything about it, he's going to take that on the chin and keep it moving, but at the end of the day, people are going to say things for clicks, people are going to say things and make them feel like they stuck it to him or they made something.

“But at the end of the day if they're not in the building or they're not in that locker room, whatever they say it doesn't mean anything.”