If Josh Hart never again subs out of a game, he has only himself to blame.
Earlier this season, Hart dropped a bomb on his teammates. He didn’t “feel included” in the New York Knicks offense, he said. The seventh-year wing wasn’t playing enough, by his estimation, and, even worse, wasn’t receiving consistent touches. The horror. Head coach Tom Thibodeau was using him as a backup power forward at the time, which irked Hart, too.
Advertisement
“I’m a guard,” he would repeat as if it were reflex and with extra emphasis on “guard” whenever anyone mentioned he was behind Julius Randle on the depth chart.
A game after pronouncing his lack of inclusion, Hart went for 17 points, a season-high at the time. The Knicks won in a blowout. And the rest of the team could not wait to get back at its teammate.
Donte DiVincenzo chalked up the beatdown to one key ingredient. “Our defense is a lot better when Josh feels included,” he said loud enough for Hart to hear on the other side of the locker room.
Randle went a similar route, answering every postgame question a couple of days later with a peer over to Hart and a mention about how well the team plays when Hart’s usage is high.
This is the dynamic of the Knicks. Hart complains about whatever he can. Sometimes, it’s that he’s not playing enough. Other times, like when Thibodeau seemed to never sub him out of games for long stints during the regular season, it was that he was too tired. There were instances of Hart kvetching about playing backup power forward. And others about becoming a starting power forward.
Earlier this winter, Hart churned out nine consecutive games of 40-plus minutes. After each of those performances, he vented to reporters about his newly founded exhausting lifestyle, although he never appeared wiped. The streak came to an end in mid-March after Thibodeau sat him during a blowout. Hart was only one rebound away from a 20-point, 20-board triple-double.
Naturally, later that night, he grumbled about how Thibodeau didn’t let him reach a rare milestone, referring to his coach as “Thomas,” which no one calls him, throughout a harangue.
After 972 complaints, the reasoning behind each of them becomes clear. Hart is not disgruntled. He never was. But his greatest passion, beyond chasing down unlikely offensive rebounds, is trolling the notoriously intense Thibodeau, the same man he insists should have won NBA Coach of the Year.
Advertisement
This playoff run is a coach’s revenge.
The Knicks are one game into their second-round series against the Indiana Pacers. They lead 1-0 after Monday’s 121-117 thriller, which included a raucous crunchtime of seesaw shots, ferocious dunks and, since New York’s postseason run can’t go any other way, referee controversies.
It’s not a Knicks playoff game if it doesn’t come down to the wire. And even more so, it’s not a Knicks playoff game if Hart is on the bench.
The 29-year-old did not sub out of Game 1, running for all 48 minutes and finishing with 24 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists. This is the third time in seven playoff games Hart has gone the full way. He has rested for a total of 15 minutes in the postseason. Entering Tuesday night, he had run for more than 20 miles during his six playoff games, according to Second Spectrum, the most in the NBA.
He is one game away from an unintentional marathon.
Grown man coming down the lane 😤 pic.twitter.com/KrM6D222gT
— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) May 7, 2024
Throughout games, Hart is in communication with Thibodeau, who is checking in on his spark plug’s conditioning.
“If he needs to come out, he’ll come out,” Thibodeau said.
But Hart rarely, and sometimes never, does. Yet, you could never tell from the way he moves at the end of these games.
Early in the fourth quarter of Monday’s win, Hart blew by Pacers center Myles Turner for a two-handed slam. Midway through it, he bolted into Turner, transforming what should have been a half-court possession into a transition one, stepping through to his right hand and finishing a layup with a foul.
He clanked the immediate free throw but snagged his miss and finished a 4-point possession. It was one of the 6-foot-4 guard’s four offensive boards on a night when the Knicks needed all of them.
Advertisement
This was during Hart’s 43rd minute of the game. From the looks of it, it could have been his first.
“At this point, (that energy) is the expectation,” teammate Isaiah Hartenstein said. “It’s impressive. … He’s running 48 minutes by himself and playing as hard as he’s playing. I don’t think you can find 10 players that can do that.”
Hartenstein has his theories as to why.
Hart views energy as finite. He winds up during games and slouches for practices. His reputation, dating to his previous stops, is that he attempts to talk his way out of physically taxing drills. To this day, Hart owns up to his animus for practice.
“The way I play, I can’t do that all the time,” he said.
His body, he worries, will give out.
Hartenstein has called Hart the worst practice player he’s ever played alongside. Maybe that’s why he’s able to go full throttle in games, Hartenstein surmised, mostly because he enjoyed throwing a dig at Hart, who so commonly jeers his teammates.
Jalen Brunson seemed to agree.
“I would say because he saves it from not practicing. He competes during the games,” Brunson said through a smile before attempting to answer the question. “Yeah, I don’t know, man. The dude’s crazy. It’s how he’s wired.”
Hart’s wiring has become the symbol of the Knicks.
Brunson is their best player, the man who will show up on MVP ballots, the one who just dropped 43 points on the Pacers, his fourth consecutive 40-point game. He’s only the fourth player in NBA history to do that in the playoffs, joining Jerry West, Michael Jordan and Bernard King. But Hart exudes the group’s identity, the gritty, try-hard rebound addict who chases after loose balls as if they’re Mike and Ike candy.
The Knicks are short-handed without Randle and Bojan Bogdanović, who are done for the season. Hart is not the only one stuck to the court. Brunson, DiVincenzo and OG Anunoby all played more than 42 minutes during Game 1.
Advertisement
Brunson wouldn’t stop scoring. DiVincenzo hit the go-ahead 3-pointer with 40 seconds to go and finished with 25 points. Anunoby defended Pacers star Pascal Siakam and made various plays in help defense, especially during the second half, that secured the victory.
No one looked tired at the end.
Meanwhile, Hart says only one activity drains his energy.
“My wife arguing with me,” he said. “That makes me extremely tired.”
Thibodeau has a theory about why Hart doesn’t show fatigue these days. Per usual, it all starts with Hart’s complaining.
At the beginning of the season, one of Hart’s leading critiques was about his body. He felt sore, and he had a reason for it. In the spring of 2023, he made the playoffs for the first time, adding more miles to his odometer than usual. For the ensuing summer, at Thibodeau’s suggestion, he joined Team USA for a run in the FIBA World Cup. The Knicks coach felt teaming up with elite players would help Hart improve and carry him into training camp in midseason shape.
Instead, Hart said the opposite occurred. He got off to a slow start and blamed his lack of lift on playing too much basketball over the preceding five months.
Of course, the only rule of conversing with Hart is to make sure not to take his grousing seriously.
When asked why Hart doesn’t experience any falloff when he’s in minute 47 or 48 of a tight postseason game, Thibodeau went full I told you so.
“I told him playing for Team USA would be beneficial,” Thibodeau said, unable to hold back the laughter. “So he came into camp in great shape.”
But Hart doesn’t agree.
“Man, Thibs is giving me s—. He loves to give me s— for no reason,” Hart deadpanned. “I haven’t done anything to him but just play hard.”
But what about all the times you have publicly griped about your coach purely for your entertainment?
“Oh, yeah,” Hart said. “And I complain about everything.”
(Photo of Josh Hart and Myles Turner: Sarah Stier / Getty Images)
