Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau was asked about the workloads of his key contributors after a wire-to-wire loss to the Wizards on Wednesday night, where, to the naked eye, it appeared as if some New York starters were showing signs of fatigue.
But Thibodeau didn't want to hear any criticisms about paying time, as he referred to those questioning workloads as the "minutes police."
"I know you guys like to create the narrative for your stories and you don't look at it in totality," Thibodeau said, via the New York Post. "I don't think we have anyone in the top 20 in minutes played," Thibodeau said. So it is what it is. I think you look at the people in your division and your conference. You look at how they're playing their guys. More often than not you're thinking about the matchups going into the game. When this guy's on the floor we're going to have this guy matched up with him. So that's what you're doing."
As Thibodeau noted, the Knicks' top-ranked player in minutes per game is Julius Randle, who is 20th in the league with 35.6, and next is RJ Barrett with 34.5 minutes, 32nd most in the league. But the focus on workload comes since Thibodeau trimmed his regular rotation to nine players, as more playing time has been needed from those still in his good graces. Since Dec. 21, a span of 16 Knicks games, Randle is second in the NBA in minutes per game, while Jalen Brunson is third, and Quentin Grimes is 14th. Still, Thibodeau insists that he is aware of workloads, even if the "minutes police" aren't around to see everything that transpires outside of game action.
"What did he do in practice? Maybe he didn't have any contact in practice, maybe it was a recovery day, or if he did do something in practice, you had a sub with him, and he did very little in practice," Thibodeau said. "So there's a lot of different things that go into pacing the team."
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