MIAMI — Tom Thibodeau has two Coach of the Year trophies, but Miami’s Erik Spoelstra has a couple of titles — and so far, the upper hand on his Knicks counterpart.
The shorthanded Heat survived a red-hot Jalen Brunson to pull out a 109-101 Game 4 victory over the Knicks at Kaseya Center.
Miami took a commanding 3-1 series lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals, and Spoelstra took an even more lopsided 11-3 edge on Thibodeau all-time in the playoffs.
“He’s been putting on a clinic,” one longtime Eastern Conference scout told The Post.
Spoelstra hasn’t lost a series to Thibodeau in the postseason, and the Knicks coach is going to have his hands full winning this one.
The playoffs have always been about adjustments, but Spoelstra doesn’t just react, he foresees a move ahead — so accurately it’s almost spooky.
“To have a coach like that, that can make adjustments and tell us and foreshadow the future, it’s kind of kind of creepy. But I’m glad he’s on our side,” said Miami center Bam Adebayo, who likened Spoelstra to a mad scientist.
Whatever he’s been cooking up so far in this second-round series has worked.
Thibodeau comes in with the individual hardware, and some would contend has overachieved with the Knicks this season.
But what Spoelstra has done to keep Miami together despite injuries to Tyler Herro and Victor Oladipo is impressive, even more so after a dismantling of top-overall seed Milwaukee that got former Coach of the Year Mike Budenholzer fired.
Follow The Post’s coverage of the Knicks vs. Heat NBA playoff series
- Vaccaro: Knicks’ failure to help Brunson is why their season’s over
- Knicks battle but fall in season-ending Game 6 loss to Heat
- Knicks couldn’t survive two minutes without Brunson
- Brunson’s heroic night spoiled by late turnover
Thibodeau, at 27-29 in the playoffs versus everybody not named Spoelstra, is a very sound coach.
But now he’ll have to outwit a great one, one the NBA GMs voted the best of the league.
In these playoffs, he’s showing why.
In Miami’s Game 1 win at the Garden, the Knicks ran out to an early lead as the Heat came out trying to trap the ball-handler, but adjusted and packed the paint to force missed 3s.
Spoelstra also switched Jimmy Butler onto Brunson, which paid off.
In Game 3, his willingness to go small to not only space the floor but keep Knick drivers in front of them paid dividends.
Thibodeau has always been stubborn in sticking with his favorites.
Immanuel Quickley’s injury left him shorthanded Monday, and he started Quentin Grimes for his shooting and gravity.
It was a worthy gamble, but it didn’t work.
The Knicks’ offense has never been terribly imaginative, but Julius Randle’s isolations against Adebayo got shut down and Thibodeau had no answers.
On the other side Spoelstra was creative in getting Butler open, using whoever Brunson was guarding in the double ballscreen, but deploying him as the second screener.
Now, both Brunson and whoever was trying to guard Butler were both put on the back foot, and helped Butler turn the corner.
“We found the value in the grind of a regular season and the grind of the struggle. … We found a beauty in that struggle,” Spoelstra said. “We’ve had to find different solutions to win. Sometimes they were just games we had to win in the mud. … Each game is a different story.”