Detroit head coach J.B. Bickerstaff seemingly came to the defense of now-former five-year Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau, without explicitly naming the team or coach, writes Matt Ehalt of The New York Post. During a conversation on ESPN Radio’s “Joe & Q” on Friday, Bickerstaff appeared to allude to Thibodeau’s recent firing, after he had led New York to a 51-win regular season and its first Eastern Conference Finals appearance in 25 years. “I don’t want to call it the cherry on top, but it’s the final straw, I think, of what has happened this season and the level of respect that we feel coaches deserve versus what they are getting,” Bickerstaff said . “Some of the decisions made down the stretch with firing coaches, it just shows that there are some places that don’t value what coaching is and what it can bring,” Bickerstaff added. “When you are a coach, you feel like there is a job that you have been told to do. And when you go out and do that job well, you should carry it over to the next year. If you have had past successes, that should envision future successes. You can’t guess what the future is going to look like with somebody new.”