NEW YORK — Tom Thibodeau denounced the “disturbing” violence in Washington D.C. He also planned to address the situation with his players, but was waiting until after Wednesday’s game against the Jazz.
The rioting on Capitol Hill began about four hours before the Knicks tipped off at Madison Square Garden.
“It’s obviously really disturbing. There’s so much to process and your hope is there can be some peaceful resolution,” he said. “But obviously it’s on all of our minds. There’s so much to digest and hopefully there’s a resolution.”
Thibodeau added that he didn’t know about any discussions to postpone Wednesday’s game against the Jazz.
“To be honest, I was unaware (what was happening) until I got to MSG,” he said. “Like I said, it’s disappointing, we’ll deal with it (Thursday). But again, a peaceful protest is fine but as I mentioned earlier, I think violence is crossing the line. We’re all Americans – we want everyone to be able to debate things but we also -- it’s important for everyone to be safe.”
An armed mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol complex in an attempt to halt the ceremonial counting of electoral votes to confirm Joe Biden’s victory. At least one woman was shot and killed in the chaos. Utah Jazz coach Quin Snyder said he briefly spoke about it pregame in the locker room.
“It’s hard to have any type of typical preparation. At some point your focus turns to the immediate. But it’s something that’s on everyone’s mind, certainly in the locker room,” Snyder said. “It’s something we had a chance to address, although not with a ton of dialogue with the potential to impact the current situation. But it’s certainly our emotions and our awareness and certainly our feelings do make it hard to concentrate. I think that’s an obvious and completely to-be-expected and natural.”
“I think it’s important for us to all acknowledge what’s going on at all levels,” Snyder added. “As I said, it not timely for us to have an in-depth political conversation. But that doesn’t mean what’s happening is (not) disturbing and incredibly unfortunate.”
