National Basketball Association's Eastern Conference team New York Knicks has given Derek Fisher the sack to vacate the club's head coach post.

Phil Jackson's hand-picked coach Fisher was fired on Monday, with the Knicks having lost five-straight games and nine out of their 10 recent match-ups to fall well back in the Eastern Conference playoff race.

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"It's time for us to make a change, turn this team around and move forward and get some wins and keep going down the road we had started here at the beginning of the year," said Jackson, who is currently serving as president of the runner-up  team of the 1999 NBA Finals.

Jackson, who has won 11 NBA titles as a coach, six with the Chicago Bulls and five with Los Angeles Lakers, hired Fisher in June of 2014, after the former Los Angeles Lakers guard retired from the game.

Jackson has designated associate head coach Kurt Rambis as the interim head coach for the rest of the season. Rambis, who had a 56-145 coaching record in his two seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves from 2009 to 2011, is a former Lakers player and Jackson's former assistant.

Fisher entered the NBA alongside Kobe Bryant in the celebrated 1996 draft batch which includes, Steve Nash, Allen Iverson, Ray Allen, Peja Stojakovic, Jarmaine O'Neal, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Stephon Marbury.

He was the 24^th overall pick selected by the Los Angeles Lakers. He played for a total of 13 seasons with the Lakers, with his first 8 seasons from 1996 to 2004 and with his return to the club in 2007 to 2012.

The five-time NBA champion, also played for the Golden States Warriors (2004-2006), Utah Jazz (2006-2007), Dallas Mavericks (2012) and Oklahoma City Thunder (2012, 2013-2014) before hanging his sneakers from the game. 

Fisher, 41, becomes the fifth NBA coach to be axed this season, joining Lionel Hollins of the Brooklyn Nets, Kevin McHale of the Houston Rockets,  David Blatt of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Jeff Hornacek of the Phoenix Suns.

TagsNBA, new york knicks, Derek Fisher, Los Angeles Lakers, Phil Jackson