Knicks head coach Tom Thibodea...

The New York Knicks have benefited much from the passage of time. The squad is 39-28, seventh in the Eastern Conference, and had won nine straight games before to Tuesday night's loss to the Hornets. Its core, led by Julius Randle and Jalen Brunson, was working as well as could be expected. They just ripped the Boston Celtics' heart out. The situation was dramatically different from three months before, when the club had started the season with a 10-13 record and looked like a Tom Thibodeau squad when the franchise had stalled. Thibodeau was apparently aware that things weren't going well enough, as Fox Sports reported Tuesday that the head coach was aware that executive vice president William Wesley had been pushing for his firing for about a year and even told a friend in early December that the team was on the verge of firing him: This isn't the first time we've heard that Thibodeau's days at Madison Square Garden may be short; SNY claimed last month that Wesley had criticized Thibodeau's coaching for the club's pre-All Star break difficulties in meetings with team owner James Dolan. The argument has undoubtedly gotten much less credible over time. None of this is to imply that Thibodeau is solely responsible for New York's recent success, or that the Knicks will live happily ever after; it only goes to demonstrate how quickly an NBA team's fortunes can shift. For example, only hours after Thibodeau's fear of being fired was published, the Bulls lost a 16-point lead in a 112-105 defeat to the Charlotte Hornets.