Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau reacts during the first quarter...

Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau reacts during the first quarter against the Cavaliers at Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday. Credit: Brad Penner

With the NBA urging officials to call traveling violations according to the letter of the law, Sunday night’s game became a harsh lesson. Thirteen traveling violations were called, the most in any NBA game this season.

“I’ve never seen that in my life,” Julius Randle said. “Yeah, didn’t they get a memo about to stop calling them?”

When he was corrected that the memo was to call them tighter, he said, “Oh, to call more? Oh, they did it. They definitely did it.”

“It's a lot of travels, a lot of travels,” Jalen Brunson said.

Asked if any of the calls — eight against the Knicks and five against Cleveland — stunned him, he said, “Yeah, probably heat of the moment. I mean, referees have a hard job to do, and you got to give them credit. It's just tough.”

Reddish and Rose sit

Derrick Rose was given the night off as a rest day in the second game of a back-to-back, but Cam Reddish, after a sluggish performance against Dallas on Saturday, was left out of the nine-man rotation. Miles McBride, who has been used sparingly this season, was the first substitution off the bench along with Immanuel Quickley, and Reddish never got the call. 

Reddish was unavailable for comment after the game, leaving before the locker room was opened to the media.

“Just coach’s decision,” coach Tom Thibodeau said. “It’s more rotation, I wanted to get it to a nine-man rotation. It worked a lot better. So just be ready.”

Thibodeau said he’s planning on sticking with the nine-man rotation for now, but asked specifically if the decision was related to Reddish’s performance against Dallas, he would not critique the individual player.

“Again, I don’t want to put anything on one guy,” Thibodeau said. “I don’t believe in that. The big thing is -— you take a hard look at the game, what can we do differently. What can make it better? If you win by 20, you’re probably not making any changes. You’re probably looking at it, trying to clean a couple things up. 

“But if it doesn’t work, you’re looking at, OK, what are the possibilities, how can we inject something different?”



 

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