DENVER — The night Knicks coach Mike Woodson may have lost Iman Shumpert could have come on Nov. 20 in the heartbreaking overtime loss to the powerhouse Pacers. Shumpert hasn’t been the same since that night, when Woodson criticized the guard for his last-second ticky-tack foul in contesting Paul George’s 3-point attempt.
Shumpert and J.R. Smith, the Knicks’ two shooting guards, look as a confused as a Rocky Mountain elk in headlights as the club concludes its four-game road trip Friday night at Pepsi Center.
Woodson is all but pleading for Shumpert and Smith to ramp it up before the Knicks’ seven-game losing streak gets worse. They are in the coach’s crosshairs.
The two guards sat together in the locker room after the latest debacle of a loss to the Clippers, whispering, giggling, like two wayward students who had just spent time in the principal’s office.
“We got too many gaps right now,’’ Woodson said at Staples Center after the locker room had been shut for more than 20 minutes because of an intense team meeting. “I got to get them playing to the level of last year. We need J.R. to play and score the ball. I need Iman to play and score the ball.’’
When Woodson criticized Shumpert for his defense on George and hailed referee Joey Crawford for his eagle eyes, the coach may have had good intentions. Perhaps he was trying to teach Shumpert a lesson. It wasn’t the time. Woodson needed to protect Shumpert. The foul call by the stickler Crawford cost the Knicks the game.
Woodson’s spiel lasted two days and it has shaken Shumpert’s spirit, confidence and moxie. It was a marginal foul and a less-bold referee would have let the play go and given the Knicks the home win instead of handing George three fouls shots at the Garden.
It took MSG Network’s freeze-frame slo-mo replays to catch the graze. While Shumpert was thrown under the bus by Woodson, the Knicks coach ramped up his rhetoric in defending Carmelo Anthony, earning a $25,000 fine for three days of knocking the referees for their unfair treatment of Anthony. As we have learned, Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire, a minus-29 against the Clippers, are untouchables when it comes to public criticism from the head coach.
If Woodson lost Shumpert that night, the coach only has himself and his “tough love’’ tactics to blame. Earlier this week, Woodson angrily called the perception he doesn’t like Shumpert as a person “bull—-’’ and doesn’t want that theory “buzzing around’’ any longer.
Woodson isn’t saying he is perfect. Woodson admits he’s hard on Shumpert — just as he was hard on Smith last season. Smith responded with a career season, an NBA Sixth Man Award and a new contract. If we are going to give credit to Woodson for bringing out the best in the mercurial Smith, the coach also should take the hit for bringing out the worst in Shumpert, who in the two games out West has scored two points on 1-of-8 shooting with one steal and three rebounds.
I got to know Shumpert better than most journalists early on. During the NBA’s labor war, Shumpert wrote a weekly diary for The Post on being a locked-out rookie. Shumpert was the writer. I was his editor.
One time, I made an editing change that infuriated Shumpert because it made it look as if he was in awe of facing LeBron James and Dwyane Wade for the first time as a pro. “I’m not afraid of anybody,’’ he told me.
He played that way for his first two seasons, God bless him. He played with fire, fearlessness and ferocity. Until this season.
Something is wrong. Maybe seeing Denver’s Kenneth Faried, the ferocious rebounding forward Steve Mills wants to exchange for Shumpert on Friday night, will bring back the old Shump.
Knicks fans and his former editor miss him.