Why did Tom Thibodeau leave Julius Randle in the game long enough to get fouled hard by Jarrett Allen?
Thibs #Thibs
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Knicks forward Julius Randle stayed down for 10 seconds wearing pain on his face and feeling it in his back.
He had just collided midair with Cavs center Jarrett Allen, who was later charged with a flagrant foul on the play. After Randle made the ensuing free throw, he exited the game and walked back toward the locker room.
New York trailed 103-80 with 2:22 to play when the foul occurred. Randle was playing his second game back from a sprained ankle that shelved him for 17 days. So why, Knicks Tom Thibodeau coach was asked postgame, was Knicks’ All-Star forward still playing in a game that had long been decided?
“I was just trying to get him some rhythm,” Thibodeau said. “That was it.”
Thibodeau later said he tried to take Randle out a few possessions earlier, but Randle requested to stay in. Randle confirmed as much postgame, saying he was “trying to get my legs under me.” And when asked about Allen’s foul, Randle deemed the contact “unnecessary.”
“I understand playoff basketball, you don’t give up on plays,” he said. “And I respect somebody who plays hard. But typically when you make those kinds of plays, you run across their body, not through them.
“But it’s fine, it’s irrelevant. We’ll go back to the Garden, and we’ll see him there.”
Randle, who finished Game 2 with 22 points, eight rebounds and six turnovers, said he felt “fine” after the fall, even though he was seen wearing medical wrap on his elbow and knee in the New York locker room. He walked with no limp and appeared ready for Game 3.
When he first hit the floor, however, he was in pain. And TNT analyst Reggie Miller wondered aloud why Randle was still playing.
“This is exactly why I’m saying (the starters) need to be on the bench,” Miller said.
Miller recognized the circumstances from the 2012 playoffs, when former Bulls guard (and current Knick) Derrick Rose tore his ACL in Game 1 against the Philadelphia 76ers. Thibs was coaching Rose then, too, and the Bulls led by 12 with about 80 seconds to play when Rose hurt his knee.
“There was no need for Derrick Rose to be on the floor when he blew out his knee the first time,” Miller said. “And there’s no reason for (Jalen) Brunson and Randle to be on the floor here.”
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