They make it so hard on themselves sometimes, these athletes who arrive in New York and wonder what they did to tick everybody off. Judging from the buzz emanating from Madison Square Garden after Sunday’s 100-99 overtime thriller against the Bulls, it would appear that Carmelo Anthony and Knicks fans are finally copacetic, even if it took awhile.
You know what Anthony should have done?
He should have taken a look over his shoulder the past few months, taken a peek at the way Tyson Chandler has taken to New York. In fact, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for any athlete, in any sport, to do one thing whenever the moving vans drop their stuff off in the boroughs: Study Chandler. See what he’s done. See how he’s done it. Listen to him. Watch him. Emulate him. Xerox all of it.
From the start this year, he got it. Following the Knicks’ lone exhibition game at the Garden, a couple of days before Christmas, Chandler talked about the Knicks and the Garden and the city in ways that had to make the folks in the mayor’s office giddy, let alone the Garden’s offices.
“Just an incredible night, an amazing experience, playing here and hearing the fans and knowing I’m not an enemy here, that I’m representing them and the city of New York,” Chandler gushed. “Normally when I come out on the floor, I’m snarling and grumpy, but it took me a few minutes to finally stop smiling tonight.”
That’s Step One: Act like you’re happy to be here.
Step Two? Well, playing well doesn’t hurt, and Chandler has played well. He’s averaged 9.9 rebounds and 1.5 blocks and he’s shooting 67.6 percent from the field (which leads the league by an astonishing, Secretariat-like amount; Andrew Bynum was second at 57.4) and he’s unselfish to the nth degree (which partly explains that otherworldly shooting percentage). During the nascent days of Linsanity, with Amar’e Stoudemire away grieving his brother, it was Chandler who played the pick-and-roll game to perfection with Jeremy Lin.
But the part Chandler has really perfected is Step Three, wherein he has become perhaps the Knicks’ most popular player. To borrow a term from baseball, he is a dirty-uniform player. He plays hard, he works referees hard (as his impressive collection of technical fouls can attest), he plays defense and is especially vocal from the bench. He has played through injuries — if we are to believe Anthony, one of those is a fractured left wrist, though Chandler denies it — and on Sunday he had to return to the locker room after hurting his elbow.
He was also responsible, as much as anyone — including Melo — for Sunday’s outcome, mostly because he single-handedly beat the Bulls at their own game. When Chicago beat the Knicks last month in Mike D’Antoni’s final game, the biggest reason why was a staggering 22 offensive rebounds.
But Sunday, with the Knicks trailing by two in overtime, with Anthony foiled first on a drive and then in not getting a call after hoisting up a follow, Chandler controlled the rebound and swatted it back out for a reset with 28 seconds to go. Then, when J.R. Smith clanked a 3, Chandler did the same exact thing, keeping the ball away from the Bulls with 22 seconds left, allowing the Knicks a third attempt on the possession.
Anthony made the clinching trey 10 seconds later, but he never gets a chance to play the part if not for Chandler’s working-class heroics.
Before that Knicks-Bulls game in Chicago last month, Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau called Chandler “one of the most underrated guys in the league.”
And after watching Chandler kill his team Sunday, Thibodeau said, “Chandler kept batting the ball out. You get what you deserve.”
That goes for Chandler, too. When the Knicks signed him in the blurry hours after the lockout this summer, the consensus first reaction went something like this: Sigh. There goes Chris Paul.
You don’t hear that much any more. What you hear, game nights at the Garden, is the people feeding off a dirty-uniform guy, a guy who not only likes playing but likes playing here.
Memo to the Next Big Thing eyeing Broadway as his new home: Pay attention. This is how you make it here.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com