IT MUST BE liberating, in a way, for New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau to have a roster like this, stripped to its bare essentials, six or seven healthy players, each of them taking the court with the same mentality: dogged persistence, fierce competitiveness, ego-free play.
Trust the pass, he tells them, and so they do. Fight like hell, he tells them, and so they do. Get better every day, he tells them, and so they do.
Three or four of them play the entire game, or close to it, and that's just the way it has to be.