NBA Champion Recalls Knicks Coach's Impact
The 2007-08 Boston Celtics' memorable run to a championship was hardly the luck of the Irish, as one member was more than willing to give current New York Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau his props for the title.
Thibodeau is one of the few active Knicks to carry a championship ring in his luggage, as he was Doc Rivers' second-in-command during Boston's famed 2008 run headlined by the triumvirate of Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, and Paul Pierce. Former Boston reserve and lasting NBA veteran Brian Scalabrine recalled the tandem's work during a Friday appearance on SiriusXM NBA Radio, calling them "the best coaching staff [he] ever had" during his 11-year playing career.
"Everyone thinks Thibodeau is just a defensive coach. He is more than that as a head coach, but, at that time, that's all he focused on, and that's what he drove home," Scalabrine recalled. "It [was] also like good cop, bad cop, not in like Thibodeau's a bad guy but almost like Thibodeau's the one demanding everyone do everything perfect and Doc had to counter ... It's more art, with Thibodeau it's more science, at the time."
Nine years after reaching the NBA Finals as a Knicks assistant under Jeff Van Gundy in 1999, Thibodeau returned to the promised hardwood land with the Celtics in 2008. Boston downed the Los Angeles Lakers in six games and made a return trip two years later with Thibodeau in tow. That led to his first head coaching job in Chicago shortly after and he brought Scalabrine along for the ride in his first two tours.
Ironically enough, Scalabrine was comparing the Rivers-Thibodeau duology to what newly-minted Los Angeles Clippers assistant Van Gundy has done in Inglewood with Tyronn Lue.
Many have praised the way that the animated Van Gundy has helped flipped the script for a Los Angeles group that has not won a playoff series since 2021. Under their shared watch, the Clippers currently own a 2-1 lead over the Denver Nuggets in their Western Conference quarterfinal matchup, the same advantage Thibodeau and the Knicks hold in their Eastern set against the Detroit Pistons.
"When we had that combination in '08 and '10, I just thought it was elite," Scalabrine, now a Celtics color commentator for NBC Sports Boston, said. "I feel the same way that [Clippers star] James Harden feels about Ty Lue and Van Gundy."
"I think Ty Lue is so comfortable in his skin that he has no problem letting Jeff Van Gundy do what he does and run up and down the sidelines, and lay into the guys or anything like that. He probably embraces that."
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