{"id":120264,"date":"2025-01-27T10:34:55","date_gmt":"2025-01-27T15:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=120264"},"modified":"2025-01-27T10:34:55","modified_gmt":"2025-01-27T15:34:55","slug":"josh-hart-calls-out-minutes-police-after-knicks-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/27\/josh-hart-calls-out-minutes-police-after-knicks-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Josh Hart Calls Out \u2018Minutes Police\u2019 After Knicks Win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are a large contingency of fans who are concerned with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/23\/the-knicks-have-a-misnomer-daniel-gafford-opportunity-to-solve-bench-woes\/\" target=\"_self\">amount of minutes that the New York Knicks<\/a> starters have been receiving. They believe head coach Tom Thibodeau has a history of doing so, and that it will eventually lead to his main players being worn out, or injured, come playoff time. While the fans have called out Thibodeau for believing that he is overusing his main pieces, there hasn\u2019t been any murmur of complaining from those Knicks players. After their win on Saturday, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hartjo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Josh Hart<\/a> mentioned the \u2018minutes police\u2019 in his postgame interview.<\/p>\n<h2>Josh Hart Calls Out \u2018Minutes Police\u2019 After Knicks Win<\/h2>\n<h3>Josh Hart Mentions The \u2018Minutes Police\u2019 In Postgame Interview<\/h3>\n<p>On Saturday, the Knicks had an offensive explosion in their 143-120 win at home over the Sacramento Kings. The victory improved their record to 30-16 on the year, good for third-best in the Eastern Conference. New York shot 17-36 (47.2%) from beyond the arc and 22-23 (95.7%) from the free-throw line while scoring at least 32 points in every quarter. Their starting five combined to total 123 points.<\/p>\n<p>The Knicks had three days off prior to that game. Their previous outing was on Tuesday in a road win over the Brooklyn Nets. Saturday saw Hart secure his <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/16\/josh-hart-triple-double-knicks-value\/\" target=\"_self\">sixth triple-double of the season<\/a> finishing with 20 points, 18 rebounds, and 11 assists. Speaking with Alan Hahn of MSG Network after the game, Hart gave a message to those that have been constantly fretting over the amount of minutes played by the starters. He said,<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Thibs gave us a couple of days off&#8230;you know so we had energy, the minutes police can relax for a little bit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Josh Hart calls out the minutes police in his postgame interview with Alan Hahn! \ud83d\ude02\ud83e\udd23 <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/JXSmUIfhGw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/JXSmUIfhGw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Knicks Fan TV \ud83c\udfc0\ud83c\udfa5\ud83d\udcfa\ud83c\udfc1 (@KnicksFanTv) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KnicksFanTv\/status\/1883354176643592449?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 26, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Now Hart and <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/brunsja01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jalen Brunson<\/a> often fool around with the other if they are being interviewed after the game. This is why Hart is circling around because he\u2019s expecting Brunson to do something. When he was able to get his thoughts together without being interrupted, Hart called out the hordes of people on social media talking about minutes played.<\/p>\n<h3>Knicks Have Four In Top 5 Of Minutes Played<\/h3>\n<p>When you look at the top of the NBA leaderboard for <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/stats\/players\/traditional?PerMode=Totals&amp;dir=A&amp;sort=MIN\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">minutes played<\/a>, it is littered with New York players. The top five are as follows:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bridgmi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mikal Bridges<\/a> (Knicks) &#8211; 1,771<\/li>\n<li>Josh Hart (Knicks) &#8211; 1,703<\/li>\n<li><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/anunoog01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">OG Anunoby<\/a> (Knicks) &#8211; 1,688<\/li>\n<li><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/e\/edwaran01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anthony Edwards<\/a> (Timberwolves) &#8211; 1,650<\/li>\n<li>Jalen Brunson (Knicks) &#8211; 1,591<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Now this can be looked at in two different lights. Yes, those Knicks players are certainly playing a lot of minutes. It also shows though they have remained healthy and mostly in the lineup. Both Bridges and Anunoby haven\u2019t missed a game (Bridges hasn\u2019t missed any in his seven-year career). Brunson and Hart have just missed one apiece.<\/p>\n<p>There are teams in the NBA that have been injury-ravaged all season long. The \u2018minutes police\u2019 that Hart spoke of say how Knicks players are bound to get hurt due to overuse. While there\u2019s plenty of season remaining, that hasn\u2019t been the case thus far.<\/p>\n<p>While the \u2018minutes police\u2019 may have quieted a bit after Saturday\u2019s blowout win, fans of all teams can be fickle at times. Expect their sirens to be going off again after Monday\u2019s game against the Memphis Grizzlies if the Knicks fail to come out on top, and there are starters playing 40+ minutes.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are a large contingency of fans who are concerned with the amount of minutes that the New York Knicks starters have been receiving. They believe head coach Tom Thibodeau has a history of doing so, and that it will eventually lead to his main players being worn out, or injured, come playoff time. While [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":120274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,62,12],"tags":[1004,215],"class_list":["post-120264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba","category-knicks","tag-josh-hart","tag-tom-thibodeau"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120264"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120276,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120264\/revisions\/120276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}