Tom Thibodeau Responds to Key Knicks Player’s Ejection During the Horrible Loss to the Bulls

Coach Tom Thibodeau of the New York Knicks was left with a bad taste in his mouth after Josh Hart’s first-half dismissal. The squad lost to his previous team, the Chicago Bulls, 108-100, on Friday, April 6, preventing them from moving up to No. 3 in the East.

“Especially when teams are packing on Jalen, he’s an important player,” Thibodeau informed reporters following the heartbreaking defeat. “We don’t have the money to do it. There’s a thin boundary. Josh has been a great help to us. But at this point, our error margin is really narrow. Distractions must be overcome. It’s a difficult decision. But losing it is more difficult. Yet things are as they are. It gave us lessons to learn.

After being swiped off the ball and kicking Bulls player of the night Javonte Green in the side of the head, Hart was dismissed with 34.1 seconds remaining in the first quarter.

Scott Foster Explains Josh Hart’s Ejection

Hart and the Knicks argued it was not intentional. But that didn’t matter in the end when the referees led by crew chief Scott Foster decided it was the right call, though a tough one, to eject Hart.

“By rule, we considered the act unnecessary and excessive, therefore it’s a flagrant foul penalty 2,” Foster said in the NBA official pool report. “Intent is not a criteria for what we do when we are ruling on a flagrant foul penalty 2 or 1. However, wind up, impact and follow through, potential for injury, whether the act was a non-basketball play, and location of the contact as well as whether we thought it was a reckless act are all the criteria that we felt were met for this decision.”

Foster added it took them time to decide on it because “we understood the impact of our decision on the game.” He explained further all three referees should unanimously agree when they eject a player so they had to look at it from multiple angles. 

Knicks Got Outrebounded Without Josh Hart

Without Hart, the Bulls dominated the glass, outrebounding the Knicks 57-38.

Entering the game, Hart was averaging 10.8 rebounds with 12.2 points and 6.0 assists per game since he replaced the injured Julius Randle as their starting power forward. His loss doomed the Knicks, who trailed by as many as 20 points.

In his smallest game since a season-low eight minutes, Hart finished with just one rebound and one assist. He was also dismissed on December 16 against the Los Angeles Clippers.

Leading the Knicks with 35 points and 11 assists was none other than Jalen Brunson. After missing nine games due to elbow inflammation, OG Anunoby returned with 12 points in 29 minutes, while Miles McBride contributed 19 points off the bench.

However, they were unable to stop the Bulls, particularly their underappreciated but gifted guards Ayo Dosunmu, a native of Chicago, who led their starters with 24 points, and Javonte Green, who scored a career-high 25 points off the bench.

The Knicks must “wake up.”
The setback stopped the Knicks from closing the gap on the Orlando Magic for the third seed in the Eastern Conference and closing the gap on the No. 2 Milwaukee Bucks to just one game.

It was the same night when all three teams lost.

Brunson bemoaned, “They played with more energy and more pace than we did.” “That makes it two straight games when we were behind quite early. We simply cannot permit it to occur.

For the second straight night, they lacked legs, in contrast to the previous one when they rallied from an early 21-point hole.

When asked what they could do to avoid those sluggish starts, Brunson responded succinctly and simply.

“Awaken,” was Brunson’s response.