New York won’t jump over the hump until they get rid of an old and stubborn man.

Rick Carlisle has won two championships, one as a player in 1986 and one as a head coach in 2011. The last one came after making a bold adjustment—going against the Miami Heatles in the Finals—by slotting JJ Barea in the starting lineup.

Tom Thibodeau has not won a championship as the head honcho of any organization, and judging by the first two games of this series (as if there wasn’t prior enough evidence already), he will retire without one.

Here’s what Coach Thibs and a few other dudes said surrounding another catastrophic basketball game played in New York on Friday.

Tom Thibodeau

On benching Towns in the fourth quarter:

“We just got in a hole, and the group that was in there gave us a chance. We were just riding that, and I was searching for a win.”

On failing to pull off the win in a tied game going into the fourth:

“It comes down to a couple things. Going into the fourth quarter, it’s a tied ball game. We’ve just got to make better plays. More winning plays.”

On responding to setbacks:

“Hopefully, from building the right habits over the course of the season, there’s going to be ups and downs, and it’s how you respond to the next challenge.”

On considering changes to the lineup for the remainder of the series:

“We always look at everything.”

On the starters’ awful net rating:

“It’s hard to just look at it that way because there’s a lot of mixing and matching. So sometimes they’re with the second unit as well. So you look at everything. And then you have to also look at what happens when you put your second unit in.”

On his between-game process:

“All you do is go through each game, you study it, you move on, get ready for the next game and that’s where the focus is. After each game, whether you win or lose, you have to re-set and have to be ready for the task at hand, which is your next game. So it’s how you respond to the next challenge.”

On his approach to a must-win Game 3:

“Same thing—just get ready for the next one. You’ve got to be ready for the next challenge. We’ve got to study the film, make our corrections and get ready to play again.”

Jalen Brunson

On needing a better defensive focus:

“The rotations weren’t there [defensively], and we need to be doing more to help each other out.”

On the higher mental demands of the playoffs:

“I guess, yeah. But we’re in the conference finals. Nothing else matters right now. We have a game every other day. We’re playing in a high-stakes moment. The mental focus — everything — has to be there. There’s no question about it at this point.”

On the starting lineup’s struggles:

“Collectively, we gotta get it together.”

On handling foul trouble:

“It’s just me being smart and understanding, offensively and defensively, what I have to do better. It is what it is, you just gotta be smart.”

On officiating throughout the ECF:

“If they call a foul, it’s a foul. Whether we challenge it or not, it is what it is.”

On tuning out noise:

“Truly [quieting the outside noise] is not that difficult. I’ve always said you’ve gotta remain level-headed when it’s positive and when it’s negative. You can’t listen to the positive and think you’re not gonna listen to the negative and vice versa. Obviously I understand what’s going on, but I have a great support system around me that helps keep me level headed.”

Mikal Bridges

On the starters’ struggles in Game 2:

“Maybe we’re just playing too soft at the beginning of the halves.”

On the Knicks’ mindset down 0–2:

“Just taking it one game at a time. We know it’s 2–0, but it’s still a long series — 1–1 first series, up 2–0 last series, now down 0–2. We’ve just got to find different ways to advance. We’ve just got to be better defensively as a team and offensively make the right play.”

Josh Hart

On what the Knicks need from Towns:

“We need him to be aggressive offensively. We need him to be locked in and communicate defensively. That’s all we need from him. We need him to communicate at a high level. Offensively, be aggressive, get to his spots, get deep post position, and use his talent offensively. Defensively, be locked in, communicate at a high level and be an anchor for us.”

On Towns’ lack of defensive chops and the need to make up for that:

“We have to figure out ways—I think he played 30 minutes—figure out ways if he can play more. We’re great with him on. We all got to be willing to sacrifice for the betterment of the team.”

On his personal struggles in Game 2:

“Yeah, it was tough to find ways to [be me], ways to help the team. Obviously, that quick foul trouble kind of puts you in a position to not being as aggressive. So that was a tough one. Just one of those games. Shots will be there some games, some they won’t.”

On facing a deep 0–2 hole:

“I wish I could tell you. I don’t know [why]. We’re down 0-2. We’ve got to figure it out. Have to find the things that spark us, we have to look at everything. It’s tough when you keep putting yourself into a hole. We have to figure that out and fix it.”

On defensive lapses in late-game moments:

“Obviously, they do a really good job of moving the ball and forcing you into mistakes, and we have to be more sound defensively to guard the first action, second action, but also the third action. We’re down 0-2, and now we’re going to a tough place to play — Indiana — so we’ve got to go and fix it. We can’t have blown coverages, no matter how late it is in the shot clock.”

On the importance of every single possession and failing to put on a full 48-minute effort:

“In the playoffs, a lot of games are determined by a possession or two. Two games in a row, we [made those mistakes]. We’ve got to figure it out.”

Karl-Anthony Towns

On sitting during the fourth quarter:

“It’s tough to lose any way. So we’ve just got to regroup together for the next one. We’re just playing ourselves into a deficit and I told you how we can’t keep doing that. Not every time are we going to be able to fight back and find ourselves with a win. Just gotta execute and be more disciplined.”

On the persistent “execution” issues:

“We’re just not executing enough. It comes down to execution, and I’m just not doing enough of that.”

On what he’s learned from past playoff series:

“If I’ve learned anything, especially last year, as quick as you win two games is as quick as you can lose two games.”

Rick Carlisle

On Paskal Siakam’s Game 2:

“Special game. In the first half, he was the guy that got us going and got us through some difficult stretches. Thought he really picked his spots. He ran great. He did everything.

“It’s hard to score that number of points in a game like this where you always have a physical matchup defensively, and there’s a guy crashing at the basket, but he did a phenomenal job. It’s a quiet 39 points, it really was.”

On the Pacers’ mindset returning home for Games 3 and 4:

“There are a lot of traps here. You can not assume going home is going to be easier, it never is. Each game as you ascend in a playoff series becomes harder. And New York has got an amazing, fighting spirit so we’re going to have to keep concentrating on our process. Making it hard on them, trying to keep tempo in the game and the rebounding.”

On what went down in Game 2:

“It was a much tighter game than the last one in a lot of ways. They were both physical. I thought our guys held their composure very well through some runs and a lot of crowd noise and a lot of commotion. They kept their composure. It’s day 3 of 13 days and no one’s getting ahead of themselves. There’s a lot of work to do.”

On building around Haliburton:

“As we’ve put this group together around Tyrese, we’ve had to make adjustments to develop a style that was effective for us. It’s a difficult style, you know, it’s demanding, physically demanding, takes a tremendous amount of wherewithal as an athlete and then you got to be super unselfish.”

On the team’s identity:

“We’re a team that’s very reliant on one another. Our style is a style where the sum of the parts is greater than the individuals.”

On defending Brunson:

“He’s a great player, great scorer. He’s a great leader. He does so much for their attack, and I just have so much respect for him, and our team does. Making it hard on him is difficult because he just finds angles, he gets places, and he routinely makes shots that if most players took them, you’d say that’s a bad shot. But he just a bucket, man. He gets ball in the basket.”

On Brunson’s rise:

“I’ve had this question before, and I’m not surprised knowing his level of determination, how much of a winner he is, and how he really has always embraced the doubters. He just loves proving people wrong. I mean, I could tell you a lot of stories about where he’s come from and how much he’s improved. But he’s basically made the statement here over the last three years in a very strong way.”

On pace not being the reason for the Game 1 comeback:

“We were behind and we were trapping, so I don’t know if pace had anything to do with it. Look we try to play a style that’s good for us, and we try to play it as well as we can.”

On managing player rotations:

“We needed to get some fresh bodies in the game. I think around that time was when [Ben] Sheppard went into the game. We may have sent one or two more guys. We had foul trouble. Both teams had foul trouble. And just try to play the whole 48 minutes and play it out and do everything we can to make it hard on them and to get some points. It worked out, but it’s over.”

On Obi Toppin’s growth:

“Obi’s grown so much as a player. When he came to us, we talked to him about improving his defense, improving his rebounding. He’s really worked at both things.”

Tyrese Haliburton

On the upcoming home crowd for Game 3:

“Everybody knows the Indy 500 is on the same day, so we’ll have some rowdy fans, maybe a little intoxicated. Who knows how it’ll get out there. You know, it’ll be a lot of fun, I think they call it ‘Pacers and Racers,’ you know it’ll be my first time experiencing it. It’ll be a lot of fun. I’m really looking forward to it.”

On external motivation:

“I love external motivation. Somebody’s talking s— about me, I want to know because I want to respond. I want to go back at them.”

On his difficult season:

“It’s been a tough year. Outside of the year I got traded, the toughest year for me basketball-wise. Coming in with so much expectations from myself, from the public, and then having such a terrible start to the year and feeling like there’s all this pressure on me. Early in the year, I didn’t even want to come to work.”

On his mindset entering the season:

“When the season starts, I’m like, ‘I’m going to go now.’ I’m going to get back at y’all.”

On how criticism began affecting him after the Olympics experience:

“Come back in. I’m terrible. How the f**k can I talk? It got to the point where all that conversation was weighing on me in a negative way for the first time in my life, which was weird. I have been somebody who seeks out that external negativity, and now it’s weighing on me?

“Basketball has always made me happy. And for the first time I wasn’t happy.”

Myles Turner

On Haliburton’s mindset:

“Ultimate self-confidence. In this environment, a lot of guys like himself with that DNA, he’ll step up. He’s delivered time and time and time again, and he doesn’t shy away from those moments.”

Bennedict Mathurin

On finding motivation from critics after last year’s run to the ECF ended in a sweep:

“Everybody was saying that last year was a fluke. We don’t really forget stuff.”

Stephen A. Smith

On the Knicks’ Game 2 loss:

“I’m trying to keep my cool, you know? There’s always hope. But I don’t understand for the life of me how in the hell Tom Thibodeau has KAT playing just 28 minutes. He’s gonna try to tell us it was defense! But with Mitchell Robinson on the court, the deficit increased. Jalen Brunson…that shot at the end of regulation? Don’t know what that was about. I don’t know what else to say. I mean…I do know what to say, but don’t want to. I don’t want to. I don’t know what Thibs was doing tonight. I have no clue! I have no idea! …Looks like we’re going home. Looks that way! Don’t know if it is that way!”

Kevin Harlan

During Brunson’s fall into the broadcast table:

“Brunson, oh look out he’s coming in, he falls into our lap, ball the other way, [Josh] Hart the other way.”

After the play:

“I’m wet, I’m dirty, stuff all over the place!”