Daily Report – 6/4/25
Here is today’s report:
Yankees
With Luke Weaver on the 15-day injured list, the Yankees have returned Devin Williams to the closer role. “[Williams has] been throwing the ball really well for the better part of a month, and I don’t expect that to change now with the role changing,” said Aaron Boone. I’m not sure that prediction was accurate, for last night in the Bronx, Williams nearly blew a 3-1 lead to the Cleveland Guardians. It took him 30 pitches, two hits, and one earned run to record his sixth save of the season.
The lights at Yankee Stadium went dark, signaling that Devin Williams was coming out of the bullpen. Almost immediately, fans began to head for the exits. Maybe they were trying to beat the traffic, or maybe they couldn’t bear to watch Devin Williams blow another save. With one out, Carlos Santana clubbed a hit to left field that would have been a triple had Cody Bellinger not stopped it. Williams then struck out Gabriel Arias before the pinch hitter Daniel Schneemann singled to right field, plating Santana. Schneemann then stole second base before Williams got Bo Naylor to fly out to left field, ending the game.
When asked about the difference between pitching in the ninth inning compared to other innings, Williams said, “Really nothing, in my opinion. I don’t view it as any different.”
Meanwhile, Carlos Rodón dazzled again for the Yankees, giving up one run in the seventh inning after six scoreless frames. The southpaw maintained an efficient pitch count through his first six innings, but in the seventh, he got tired. José Ramírez singled before stealing second base, and David Fry deflected an RBI single off DJ LeMahieu’s glove to tie the game. LeMahieu had given the Yankees the lead in the fifth inning with an RBI single to right field, backing up his four-hit Sunday in style.
Continuing the top of the seventh inning, with one out, Gabriel Arias singled to center field, but Trent Grisham bobbled the ball. It looked like a defensive disaster was about to ensue as Arias took off for second base. But then, the Gold Glove centerfielder Grisham recovered, firing the baseball to DJ LeMahieu, who applied the tag at second base to record the second out. After walking Will Wilson, Carlos Rodón got Bo Naylor to fly out to left field, finishing his gorgeous outing with the game tied at one.
In the bottom of the seventh inning, Jazz Chisholm Jr. drove a home run to right field to put the Yankees on top again. Chisholm returned from the injured list and went 2-for-3, ending Tanner Bibee’s no-hit bid with a fifth-inning single along with his home run. “I just want to win,” said Chisholm, who played third base for the first time last night since mishandling Anthony Volpe’s throw in the fifth inning of Game 5 of the World Series. “I want a ring.”
Jazz Chisholm is a natural athlete, and the minor league shortstop turned center fielder turned third baseman can play just about any infield position. Chisholm’s defensive flexibility also allows the Yankees to trade for a second baseman at the deadline, which may be easier than finding a third baseman given their need for right-handed hitting.
“Every day, sitting on that bench, you’re thinking about coming back and just starting strong,” said Chisholm, who admitted he imagined going 3-for-3 in his return to the Yankees lineup. “I didn’t have the best start, so starting the season over […] you just don’t focus on what happened before.”
Entering this season, Brian Cashman told the media he had intended to use Chisholm as a second baseman ever since trading for him at last year’s deadline. Gleyber Torres’s departure made way for the defensive change, but DJ LeMahieu’s return has resulted in Chisholm revisiting third base. “I really thought I was done at third base,” said Chisholm. “I thought I left my career over there with a good stamp, but I guess we’re back again. We’ve got to shine again. We can’t let that reputation go down.”
Chisholm adjusted brilliantly to last night’s defensive change, and his best play came in the third inning when he robbed Angel Martínez of a hit. Paul Goldschmidt scooped Chisholm’s deep throw off the ground to record the out. “The throw really makes it a tough play,” said Chisholm. “After you catch the ball, you’ve got to turn around and fire a strike over to first base. Shout-out to Goldy over there, picking me up.”
In last night’s pivotal seventh inning, Anthony Volpe, hitting behind Chisholm, followed his seventh-inning solo shot with a home run of his own, a full-count 372-foot blast down the left field line for his seventh dinger of the season. Carlos Rodón, who now has a 1.27 ERA across his last nine starts, appreciated the support. “These guys make it easy,” he said. “Offensively, we’re so good. I just know I have to get outs, and eventually we’re going to score more than a few runs.”
Tonight, the Yankees will send RHP Clarke Schmidt (2-2, 3.95 ERA) to the mound against the righty Luis L. Ortiz (2-6, 4.40 ERA) as they aim to win the series against Cleveland (Prime Video).
EXCLUSIVE: Thibodeau Out
The Knicks shocked the world yesterday when they announced they were parting ways with Tom Thibodeau, their head coach of five years, who helped them emerge from the quagmire of irrelevancy. After winning 51 games and reaching the Conference Finals for the first time in 25 years, the Knicks’ front office was not satisfied. Leon Rose was not satisfied. James Dolan was not satisfied.
Leon Rose began his memo by stating, “Our organization is singularly focused on winning a championship for our fans.” So, who made the call? I’m certain Rose would not have permitted Dolan to squash the Knicks like he did a decade ago. Not without a plan. So, the decision begs one question: Why?
First, it’s worth considering this article from The Athletic, which repeatedly alludes to locker room issues the Knicks faced this postseason. MSG Networks analyst Wally Szczerbiak referenced these issues ahead of the first-round Pistons series, and the narrative entering this postseason was that if the Knicks fell to the Pistons, or even the Celtics, Thibodeau, who has never won a championship, would be out as head coach. Yes, even after the Knicks upset the defending champions, there were reports coming out that Thibodeau was still on the hot seat.
So, let’s rewind. To the end of last season, when an injury-riddled Knicks team fell in the conference semifinals in seven games to the Indiana Pacers. That summer, the Knicks traded five first-round picks to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Mikal Bridges, and they named Jalen Brunson captain of the complete Villanova Knicks team. But after Isaiah Hartenstein signed with Oklahoma City, and it became clear that Mitchell Robinson’s injury recovery timeline was longer than anticipated, Leon Rose rolled the dice on Karl-Anthony Towns. The trade sent Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo to Minnesota, breaking up the Nova Knicks, as AT&T accurately summarized in their television commercial. The only concern around this trade was that Towns was poor defensively, and the Knicks were losing defensive depth by trading Randle and DiVincenzo. However, fans were confident that Tom Thibodeau, whose 2023-24 Knicks were one of the NBA’s top defensive teams during their January of health in 2024, would mold Towns into a serviceable defender and maintain another defense-focused roster.
But that didn’t happen.
The Knicks finished the 2024-25 season with the 13th-best defensive rating in the NBA, and in the playoffs, their starting five was one of the worst +/- units in the league. Also, Karl-Anthony Towns showed his true colors in the playoffs as one of the worst pick-and-roll defenders in the playoffs, and as a duo, he and Jalen Brunson couldn’t outscore opposing stars because they couldn’t defend them. Therefore, a decline in the Knicks’ defensive production this season can be cited as one reason why the Knicks parted ways with Tom Thibodeau.
If you look at the Knicks’ wing defenders, the numbers in the Celtics series suggest they defended Boston’s three-point shooting brilliantly but struggled to do the same against Indiana. The numbers could also suggest that Boston lost to the Knicks because they are too focused on three-point shooting, and when they missed too many shots, they could not readjust. Indiana, however, incorporated several variations of offense against the Knicks, exploiting them both inside and outside the three-point line. The Knicks hadn’t been able to defend beyond the three-point line or in transition at all during the regular season, and this never improved under Tom Thibodeau’s watch. Moreover, there was no evidence to suggest Thibodeau made any notable efforts to solve these issues until he was forced to use his three bench players in the playoffs, and they defended better than his starters. He constantly rolled out the same unit, hoping for new results, but they never arrived.
Throughout this past regular season, Tom Thibodeau constantly received criticism about the number of minutes his starting players received, especially after Mikal Bridges complained about his time on the court. If the NBA’s iron man was complaining about receiving too many minutes, then something was amiss. Thibodeau often defended his minutes decisions, and in the playoffs, he maintained one of the NBA’s healthiest squads. Many credited the Knicks’ health to the minutes Thibodeau gave them in the regular season.
Ultimately, the Knicks were exhausted in the final games of their series against Indiana, and because their bench lacked depth, they matched up poorly with the Pacers. Indiana and Oklahoma City are facing off in the NBA Finals because they have some of the deepest rosters in the NBA. Throughout Tom Thibodeau’s tenure in New York, the Knicks never once had a bench deep enough to compete with the NBA’s finest, which is a major reason why they never once beat Indiana, Oklahoma City, or Boston in the regular season and fell to Indiana in the Eastern Conference Finals.
If there’s anything Tom Thibodeau has shown throughout his NBA career as a coach, it’s that he doesn’t build deep benches, and he never changes his ways. The Knicks recognized that Thibodeau wasn’t going to change for them, so they decided to move in a new direction. But I think the issue is more complex.
After the Knicks fell to the Pacers in six games, The Athletic reported that after losing Game 5 to Boston, PJ Tucker organized a players-only meeting focused on improving players’ energy levels and team commitment. The Knicks then beat Boston by 38 points in Game 6 to advance to the conference finals for the first time in 25 years, but in Game 1 against Indiana, they choked away a 20-point lead in the final minutes of the fourth quarter. With 34 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, as the Knicks were desperately trying to defend a five-point lead, TNT recorded an altercation between OG Anunoby and Karl-Anthony Towns. An exhausted Anunoby headed for the bench during a timeout, and he began yelling at Towns. Mitchell Robinson quickly tried to diffuse the situation, but he was unsuccessful. Towns started chirping back at Anunoby, and the fight continued before Jalen Brunson grabbed Anunoby to tell him to stop arguing with Towns. Brunson eventually had to get up to tell the pair to stop fighting.
Perhaps that altercation was insignificant to the Game 1 result, but the Knicks still lost the game. The players who were arguing returned to the court and lost the game. Tom Thibodeau was a non-factor in diffusing the tension between his teammates. In fact, the tension worsened under his watch. After losing Games 1 and 2, the Knicks managed to win Game 3, and Mitchell Robinson credited communication as the key to the victory. Robinson mentioned communication many times throughout the Pacers series, admitting it was absent during Game 1.
Communication is a broad term, but in this context, it is likely connected with a poor locker room dynamic and a somewhat ineffective head coach. Perhaps the head coach was more than somewhat ineffective, though, because if it took PJ Tucker, who was acquired late in the season, to be a voice of inspiration instead of the team’s coach of five years, then something was amiss. As The Athletic reported, the Knicks held multiple players-only meetings after bad playoff losses this season, which is unusual because of how often they held those meetings. This can also be read as, “because of how many awful losses they collected.”
Reports also came out suggesting players had what Josh Hart referred to as “personal agendas,” which invaded the locker room throughout the playoffs. Or, as Wally Szczerbiak suggested, throughout the regular season as well. One potential “personal agenda” is Jalen Brunson’s loyalty toward Tom Thibodeau. After the Knicks lost Game 6 to Indiana, a reporter asked Brunson if Thibodeau was the right coach for the Knicks, and Brunson, clearly annoyed by the question, replied, “Is that a real question right now? You just asked me if I believe he’s the right guy? Yes. Come on.” Now that Thibodeau has been fired, Brunson’s response begs for questions about whether his loyalty toward his coach impacted his ability to lead his team to a championship this season. A coach whom Brunson has known since he was a little boy, and a coach who values his father as a member of his staff. It’s difficult to argue those factors didn’t impact the 2024-25 Knicks.
From every angle, the rationale for Thibodeau’s firing appears to exceed his coaching skills. Now, the Knicks need to define the direction in which they plan to move.
