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Why Mike Woodson's coaching philosophy is flawed

Anthony Gruppuso / USA TODAY Sports

Many believed Phil Jackson would hire his own coaching staff as part of his new role running the Knicks, and the first step in that process came Monday when he relieved Mike Woodson (and his staff) of his coaching duties.

Woodson somehow lasted the entire tumultuous season despite owner Jim Dolan's history of rash decisions, but that he would be let go when the Knicks' year mercifully came to an end was one of the worst kept secrets in the NBA.

Woodson certainly wasn't the only problem in New York this season, but he was part of the problem. His iso-heavy offense actually finished the season ranked 11th at 105.4 points per 100 possessions after it surged in the wake of Andrea Bargnani's season ending injury, but Woodson didn't help himself by going away from the smaller lineups that were so effective for him last season, stubbornly shying away until injuries once again forced his hand.

The defensive side of the ball is where Woodson's greatest failures came, however, and that really shouldn't surprise anybody. Despite his reputation as a defensive coach, Woodson's teams have only ranked top-10 in defensive efficiency once in his nine seasons as a head coach, and they've only even finished in the top half of the league three times.

The Knicks finished 24th in defensive efficiency this season, and by the end of the year, between Woodson's comments, Tyson Chandler's comments and what was unfolding on the actual court, we still didn't even know whether the Knicks were supposed to be switching coverages when defending the pick-and-roll. That kind of confusion became commonplace when watching New York navigate through this nightmare of a season, a testament to the low IQ talent of some of the players on the team and Woodson's inability to get through to them.

When it comes to Woodson and defense, it's become pretty clear over the last decade that while the 56-year-old prefers to focus on that end of the court, the only consistent aspect of his teams' defensive performance lies in his insistence on playing at a snail's pace, which obviously skews the total points and points per game numbers.

In a pre-season piece on the Knicks for Grantland, Zach Lowe wrote that Woodson "prefers raw points allowed over possession-based stats," which really tells you all you need to know about Woodson's outdated way of thinking the game. That simplistic, naive belief in raw points allowed statistics is why Woodson's teams have never played faster than the 12th-ranked pace in the league in his eight full seasons as a head coach (The Knicks finished fifth-fastest in 2011-12, when Woodson took over for Mike D'Antoni midway through the season) and why his teams have finished 24th, 27th, 26th and 29th in pace over his last four full seasons in charge.

Playing slow and limiting both your own and your opponents' possessions will obviously decrease the total scoring in a game, and that pace factor is the only reason why Woodson's teams have finished in the top-10 in points allowed per game in each of his last four full seasons at the helm and in the top-15 in six straight seasons.

Woodson either claims to prefer raw points allowed over possession-based stats because he's aware of his own defensive coaching limitations outside of playing slow and needs a positive stat to try to convince others with, no matter how flawed that stat is, or he legitimately doesn't grasp the concept of evaluating teams on a per possession basis, which would be downright frightening for an NBA coach in 2014.

Either way, Woodson's defensive reputation has been exposed as somewhat of a fraud, and when you combine that lack of defensive awareness with an often stagnant, iso-heavy offensive philosophy, it's tough to see many future jobs out there for him in an NBA world being taken over by smarter, think-outside-the-box type basketball executives.

As for the Knicks, rumors will continue to swirl around the possibility of an ex-Jackson player familiar with The Triangle - like Steve Kerr or even Derek Fisher - inheriting the coaching reins in New York.

With Carmelo Anthony's Knicks status in limbo, we still don't know whether the franchise will be in 'win now' or rebuild mode come next year, but either way, while Woodson shouldn't shoulder all of the blame for this season, the franchise needed to move on from him regardless of their next step.

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