The New York Knicks are in the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999, but the journey to get there has been anything but smooth. In a city where expectations never ease and basketball carries a weight that stretches far beyond the court, every decision is magnified.
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Now just one step away from a title, the Knicks’ rise has been shaped by years of setbacks, bold calls and constant scrutiny. From the controversial decision to move on from Tom Thibodeau and bring in Mike Brown, to the high-stakes trade that helped define their playoff surge, every move has carried risk and consequence.
Here, foxsports.com.au breaks down how they got here, tracing the path from turbulence to a Finals berth.
HOW ‘EMBARRASSING’ COACHING MOVE PAID OFF
Before the Knicks made the finals, they were in all sorts after last season, firing former head coach Tom Thibodeau, which paved the way for Mike Brown to take over. But it was a decision, at the time, that did not sit well with many experts throughout the league.
Tom Thibodeau’s exit from the New York Knicks in 2025 triggered an immediate reaction across the NBA, with Detroit Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff among the most vocal in defending his former colleague.
Speaking on ESPN Radio’s “Joe & Q”, Bickerstaff framed the decision as part of a wider issue around how coaches are treated across the league after Thibodeau was dismissed following five seasons and a run to the Eastern Conference Finals.
“I don’t want to call it the cherry on top, but it’s the final straw, I think, of what has happened this season and the level of respect that we feel coaches deserve versus what they are getting,” Bickerstaff said.
His comments reflected a sentiment shared in coaching circles, where the timing and principle of New York’s decision came under heavy scrutiny.
The backlash around the league was swift. NBA legend Charles Barkley labelled the organisation the “stupidest damn people”, while broadcaster Dick Vitale called the situation “embarrassing” and even suggested Thibodeau should be reinstated.
At the centre of the debate was timing. The Knicks had just reached their first conference finals in 25 years and secured a fourth playoff appearance in five seasons under Thibodeau, yet still chose to move on in pursuit of a championship breakthrough. That tension between patience and ambition quickly defined their off-season.
Behind the scenes, the message from the front office was clear. Owner James L. Dolan believed a new voice was needed to push the roster beyond contention and into title territory, even if it meant moving on from a coach who had rebuilt the organisation’s credibility. Reports also pointed to growing player concerns around rotation structure and offensive flow, often referred to as “Thibs Minutes Syndrome”.
That reputation had been building for years. The Knicks led the entire NBA in total starter minutes by more than 500 during the previous season, reinforcing concerns that Thibodeau’s reliance on his core group left little room for rest or experimentation.
The debate was not new either. In the season prior, New York’s deepest playoff run in decades ended amid injuries and fatigue, bringing renewed scrutiny of his workload management. It intensified again when Mikal Bridges, one of the league’s most durable players, spoke openly about the physical demands.
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“Sometimes it’s not fun on the body,” Bridges told the New York Post.
“He just wants to keep the starting player out there.”
He also suggested the roster had enough depth to share the load more evenly, arguing that a deeper rotation could benefit both performance and player health.
Thibodeau, however, consistently pushed back on that narrative.
“I think sometimes people get caught up in the wrong stuff,” he said during a previous radio appearance.
“The most important thing is winning.”
It was a mindset that followed him from Chicago to Minnesota and ultimately to New York, shaping both his success and the criticism that came with it.
Much of the scrutiny around his approach has been driven more by perception than hard evidence, particularly the belief that heavy minutes increase injury risk. That view has lingered since Derrick Rose’s knee injury in Chicago and resurfaced whenever his rotations tightened in high-stakes moments.
But a closer look at the data paints a less definitive picture. NBA injury reporting is inconsistent, often blending injuries with rest and illness, which makes long-term comparisons difficult and limits clear conclusions about workload and durability.
Thibodeau’s departure marked a clear reset in New York’s direction, shifting the focus from sustained progress to immediate contention. That urgency shaped a difficult coaching search, with several franchises denying permission to speak with sitting head coaches before the Knicks eventually turned to Mike Brown.
Brown arrived with a resumé built for expectation. His career includes long spells under Gregg Popovich and Rick Carlisle, Finals appearances with LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, and championship success as an assistant in San Antonio and Golden State. More recently, he restored Sacramento to relevance, ending the Kings’ long playoff drought and stabilising a struggling franchise.
In New York, though, the job was different. It was no longer about building a foundation, but finishing the climb. Brown inherited a roster that had already reached the conference finals but was now judged on whether it could go further.
Karl-Anthony Towns set the tone after Game 3 against Cleveland.
“He had big shoes to fill,” he said. “Making the Eastern Conference finals was going to be the bar, minimum.”
Brown accepted that standard immediately.
“I love being in a position where you feel expectations,” he said at media day.
“That means there’s something of importance that you’re doing.”
REDEMPTION FOR MIKE BROWN AFTER ‘SHOCKING’ DISMISSAL
Mike Brown’s NBA coaching journey has rarely followed a straight line.
From transforming the Sacramento Kings into a playoff team for the first time in nearly two decades, to suddenly finding himself out of a job less than two years after winning Coach of the Year, Brown’s rise and fall became one of the league’s biggest talking points.
Now, after helping guide the New York Knicks to their first NBA Finals appearance since 1999, the conversation around him has shifted once again.
Brown’s demanding coaching style was never a secret in Sacramento. De’Aaron Fox, who played eight years with the Kings, revealed that after every practice and shootaround, Brown would send him detailed performance grades via text message, part of a relentless approach built around accountability and improvement.
“He’d text me every day with a grade,” Fox told ESPN after Brown’s dismissal.
Rather than resisting the criticism, Fox embraced it.
“I’ve always been coached hard,” he said. “I went to Kentucky because John Calipari was hard on me.”
That’s why Fox pushed back strongly against suggestions that tension between himself and Brown played any role in Sacramento’s decision to move on from the veteran coach after a disappointing 13-18 start.
“I feel like there’s this perception that people thought we were at odds,” Fox said. “Me and Mike never even had an argument. We could disagree with something, talk about it, and move on.”
Just weeks earlier, Fox and Brown had sat down for what Fox described as a heart-to-heart conversation about the direction of the season. Brown challenged Fox to push himself further defensively, telling him he believed he could become one of the best two-way guards the league had seen.
“I was fine with that,” Fox explained. “He told me things privately, then said it publicly. And he still played me 40 minutes because he believed in me.”
But while those conversations were happening behind closed doors, Sacramento’s front office was wrestling with bigger questions about the future.
The Kings had gone from one of the NBA’s best stories to one of its biggest disappointments in a remarkably short time. Brown had ended the franchise’s 16-year playoff drought in his first season, lighting up Sacramento and restoring energy to an organisation that had spent years stuck in irrelevance. Yet despite adding six-time All-Star DeMar DeRozan in the off-season, the Kings slipped back towards the bottom of the Western Conference standings.
Statistically, the numbers didn’t look disastrous. Sacramento’s offence ranked among the league’s best, while the defence remained middle-of-the-pack. But close losses, blown leads and inconsistent late-game execution continued to pile up. The front office explored trade possibilities involving names like Zach LaVine, Brandon Ingram, Cam Johnson and Kyle Kuzma, searching for anything that might shift momentum.
“Nobody wanted to fire Mike,” one team source said. “Until the very last moment we were trying to make it work.”
Instead, the situation unravelled quickly.
After Brown led a film session and practice following Sacramento’s loss to Detroit, he was informed of his dismissal while driving to the airport ahead of the team’s trip to Los Angeles. The handling of the decision drew sharp criticism from around the league.
Former Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone, who was also fired by Kings owner Vivek Ranadivé during his own Sacramento tenure, blasted the organisation.
“No class, no balls,” Malone said. “That’s what I’ll say about that.”
Indiana coach Rick Carlisle described the decision as “shocking”, while Warriors coach Steve Kerr admitted he was stunned that a coach who had completely reshaped the Kings culture could be dismissed so quickly after recent success.
Brown finished his Sacramento tenure with a 107-88 record and two winning seasons, something the Kings had not managed in nearly 20 years. Yet in the NBA, momentum can disappear fast.
That reality made Brown’s arrival in New York even more fascinating.
When the Knicks parted ways with Tom Thibodeau despite reaching the Eastern Conference Finals, many around the league questioned the decision. Reports suggested New York pursued several high-profile names, including Jason Kidd, Ime Udoka, Quin Snyder, Chris Finch and Billy Donovan, only to be denied permission to speak with them.
Speaking on the ALL NBA podcast, Marc Stein and Adam Mares said Brown was far from the franchise’s first choice.
“Mike Brown at best was the sixth choice for this job,” Stein said.
At the time, the move looked risky. Thibodeau had restored credibility to the Knicks, and there were genuine questions about whether Brown could elevate the team further. But the gamble has paid off spectacularly.
Since a shaky opening stretch that included two painful losses to Atlanta, New York has surged into the NBA Finals behind improved ball movement, stronger chemistry and a more adaptable offensive system. Karl-Anthony Towns has flourished in a new role, while Mikal Bridges has silenced critics with his playoff performances.
Mares pointed to the way the Knicks evolved under Brown as proof the coaching change ultimately worked.
“A lot of people wondered how different they could really be with Mike Brown,” he said. “But the teamwork and the way they’ve come together has been incredible.”
Brown still hasn’t won a championship as a head coach, but his years alongside Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr gave him experience inside elite championship environments. Now, after one of the most turbulent coaching stretches in recent NBA memory, he has New York two wins away from delivering its first title in more than 50 years.
THE BIG ROSTER MOVES AND TRADES BEHIND KNICKS’ RISE
Rewind to the trade deadline and Karl-Anthony Towns was right in the middle of league-wide chatter, with rival teams circling and different scenarios being explored. In hindsight, it feels like the kind of noise New York are glad they resisted acting on.
Because right now, the Knicks are built around two elite offensive engines in Jalen Brunson and Towns, who together drive one of the league’s most efficient attacks and shoulder huge minutes every night. When it clicks, there are few pairings that look as natural.
Even then, Towns sat at the centre of debate. The production is steady, the scoring and rebounding remain strong, and the Knicks are clearly more dangerous offensively with him on the floor. But the defensive strain, combined with costly fouls in key moments, continues to follow him when games tighten and possessions slow down.
That is also why his name kept surfacing ahead of the deadline. Any serious swing at a star like Giannis Antetokounmpo would almost certainly require a contract of Towns’ size to be part of the equation. And beyond blockbuster hypotheticals, the reality remains simple: when Towns and Brunson share the floor, the offence flows, but the defence is constantly under pressure.
That tension sits right at the centre of how far this group can go, even now, with the Knicks just four wins away from a championship.
When New York fell behind 2-1 to Atlanta in the first round of the 2026 playoffs, the pressure around the entire build snapped into focus. This was a roster assembled through bold, high-cost decisions, and anything short of a deep run risked pulling those moves back under scrutiny.
The biggest of those swings was the trade for Mikal Bridges, brought in from Brooklyn at the cost of five first-round picks. It was a massive price for a two-way wing, and it immediately set a clear expectation: he had to impact winning on both ends.
That spotlight only intensified after a difficult Game 3 against Atlanta, where Bridges finished scoreless with four turnovers. For a player tied so closely to such a significant trade, it became an easy pressure point.
But the Knicks built this group for more than isolated setbacks.
Since then, Bridges has completely shifted the tone of his postseason. He has been central to New York’s surge into the NBA Finals, delivering exactly the balance the front office had in mind when it pushed in those draft assets.
His value is not built on usage or headline moments. It is built on stability. He shifts between scoring, spacing and defensive assignments depending on what the game demands, never needing the offence to run through him to stay effective.
Coach Mike Brown captured that role clearly: “He’s just got a good feel,” Brown said.
“He’s picking and choosing (when to go for steals), just like when he’s picking and choosing to go for his shot when we call his number. We need him to continue to do that. I told him and OG (Anunoby) that because I don’t call a lot of plays, you guys have to impose your will on the game. They’re both doing a phenomenal job of imposing their will on the game.”
Teammate Josh Hart has been just as direct about what Bridges brings beyond the price tag: “The expectations don’t matter,” Hart said. “That’s for y’all to talk about. There’s nothing he can do about it.
“He didn’t call (Knicks president) Leon (Rose) and say, ‘Yo, this is the trade package!’ He got put into this situation, and he hit the ground running. We wouldn’t be in this situation without him. Look, how many games has he won for us because he got a stop down the stretch? He’s won games in every single way for us. That’s why we wanted him. That’s why he’s here.”
That is the reality of Bridges’ role. Not the headline star the trade price suggested, but the connective piece that holds the structure together.
And in a run defined by big swings and even bigger expectations, New York are now seeing exactly why they paid five first-round picks to bring him in.
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Elsewhere, the conversation around Brunson’s move from Dallas still lingers whenever roster construction is discussed.
His free agency departure remains one of the most analysed decisions in recent years, with both sides continuing to present different versions of how negotiations unfolded. Brunson’s camp has consistently pointed to fit and opportunity in New York, while Dallas leadership has maintained they were never given a clear chance to re-sign him on their terms.
Brunson himself has kept his focus firmly on the present, with both franchises having moved on in different directions since the split.
Then there is Towns’ own emotional thread.
He continues to carry the weight of his Minnesota Timberwolves past, particularly in match-ups against his former team. After nine seasons there, that connection has not faded.
“I’m still stunned, I mean, I’m still stunned. It’s weird,” Towns said following his last game against Minnesota.
“I feel more like a Knick now after everything we went through last year, but it’s weird to see that Wolves jersey — especially the fire black one — and not see ‘Towns’ on the back of it.”
In the end, everything circles back to the same theme: the Knicks did not build this team through safe decisions. They pushed in on Towns, committed to Brunson as the offensive hub, changed coaches, and spent five first-round picks on Bridges to give the roster balance on both ends.
It has all led them to this point, with every move under a microscope and every weakness exposed under playoff pressure. Now, with a championship within reach, the question is no longer whether the cost was too high or the fit too complicated.
It is whether the collection of bold swings can finally be justified with the one result that makes it all worthwhile.