The chants never quite materialized, though you could hear pockets of discontent scattered about Madison Square Garden even as most of the 19,763 people in attendance rose to applaud and salute the Knicks in the final seconds of Sunday’s eliminating loss to the Celtics.
From behind the Seventh Avenue baseline came this: “DON’T BOTHER TO DO ANY COACHING, D’ANTONI! WHY START NOW?”
From the lower bowl behind the Celtics bench: “YOU’RE A FIASCO, D’ANTONI!”
From farther up: “THERE’S NO ‘D’ IN ANTONI AND THERE NEVER WILL BE!”
But no chanting. No sing-song “Fire D’Antoni,” no “Let’s spike Mike!” to hammer the point home, no “Bring back Jeff!” aimed at the slouching presence of James Dolan.
“I’m biased,” D’Antoni said later, asked if he was worried about losing his job. “I like me.”
There are fewer and fewer people who share that opinion. Amar’e Stoudemire, amazingly, is one, speaking graciously of “Coach Mike.”
Carmelo Anthony couldn’t possibly be more agnostic on the subject; asked point-blank if people who want D’Antoni fired were right, Anthony said yesterday, “I don’t know,” then spent some time talking about D’Antoni’s “patience,” which didn’t exactly sound like he was prepared to lie down in front of D’Antoni’s car to make sure he stays.
An aftermath like this rarely leaves any gray. And the fact is, D’Antoni isn’t a terribly popular coach right now, certainly not with the clientele of Knicks fans who yesterday began their 38th straight offseason without a championship, their 11th straight without a playoff series win, their 10th without even one lousy win in a postseason game. They sounded fed up leaving the Garden on Sunday, more embittered as the reality of a sweep sank in yesterday.
“At these prices,” wrote one angry e-mailer, whose venom practically scorched my inbox, “you have to be extra accountable. If that sounds unfair, sorry. So are my season ticket prices.”
So the 10-year era of uber-tolerance is over, and the first one who feels that newborn wrath is D’Antoni. Should he be fired? Put it this way: If that announcement were to come from the Garden this week, there would be few peals of outrage. He certainly could get fired. Coaches have been fired for less, New York coaches for much less.
I don’t think he should be fired, but that opinion comes, as Anthony’s does, with a king-sized dose of ambivalence. If you want to be fair, you talk about the first two years of his regime that were sacrificed to salary-cap streamlining. You talk about the fact that he had to coach two entirely different teams this year, and still got them to the playoffs. And you talk about the reduced roster he had once those playoffs hit full throttle.
But there are also these troubling matters: a chronic inability (is that worse than unwillingness?) to get his teams committed even a little bit to defense; a firmly established star-system in which he sometimes seems neutered by his own players; and while there are some around the sport who still endorse his X’s-and-O’s acumen, that wasn’t on brilliant display the past week.
The truth is, the biggest reason D’Antoni survives is a practical one: Whom do the Knicks hire who’s substantially better? Doc Rivers is under contract for one more year. Look at Phil Jackson for 30 seconds and you realize he needs a year of R&R. Jeff Van Gundy? That’d be my pick. But even the most ardent Dolan-basher has to concede this much: Would you hire someone who’d already quit on you once, and also walked away from his other NBA job?
Who else? John Calipari? With Kentucky poised to have the kind of year it seems likely to have, Cal’s asking price might double. Mike Krzyzewski? He has a terrific relationship with Melo from the Olympics, but he’s turned the NBA down repeatedly and is only three wins from surpassing Bob Knight as the all-time winningest coach in D-I history.
Not to mention, with a lockout looming and the Knicks still owing D’Antoni $6 million, do the Knicks really want to pay two coaches?
So, for now, D’Antoni is the Knicks’ best option. He’d just better beware: When next season arrives — if it arrives — the newly renovated Garden might be beautiful to behold. But the noise it will generate if things don’t go well will be something else entirely. You can hear the chanting already.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com