TORONTO — About an hour before the Knicks would open their season at the Air Canada Centre, Hall of Famer Walt “Clyde” Frazier was sitting courtside wondering whether Amar’e Stoudemire might try to do too much too soon to get his team off to a good start.
“If he thinks he’s being asked to do too much, then he won’t be doing anything,” Frazier said. “He’s just got to play his game. He can’t go out thinking I’ve got to get 25 and 20 and all that. Every night he just has to go out and do what needs to be done and not think he has to win every game by making every key shot and getting every key rebound.”
It would be natural for Stoudemire to feel the weight of the Knicks’ future on his shoulders. “The Big Three” in Miami might feel under pressure to produce success. But at least LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade have each other. Stoudemire has nobody. Or at least that’s the way it seems.
But if the Knicks are to enjoy any kind of success this season, others will have to carry their share of the responsibility. Last night’s 98-93 Opening Night triumph over the Raptors wasn’t exactly a perfect blueprint of total team contribution. But at least it offered some encouraging signs Stoudemire won’t be alone in the Knicks’ journey back to respectability.
The biggest eye-opener was not the 19 points and 10 rebounds Stoudemire produced in his Knick debut, but the 22-point effort off the bench by Wilson Chandler. The Knicks need him to be an impact player even as a sixth man. He was all of that last night, shooting 10-of-18 from the field and gathering eight rebounds.
Other notable contributions came from rookie Landry Fields (11 points), who showed no stage fright in his first NBA game. Backup big man Ronny Turiaf (four blocked shots) and point guard Toney Douglas (10 points) also provided good moments.
“We can’t expect Amar’e to do it every time all the time,” said head coach Mike D’Antoni. “We have to have other guys around him to get comfortable and play the way they did tonight.”
While all that is promising, there are plenty areas that need improvement. Danilo Gallinari seems to have left his jump shot in Italy (3-of-9 from the field), center Timofey Mozgov is foul-prone, and failing to score for nearly all of the final 2:41 of the game nearly cost the Knicks.
Stoudemire also committed nine turnovers, scarring his stat line. Still he was a force late in the game, scoring seven consecutive points to give the Knicks their 96-88 lead.
“He’s going to be a finisher,” D’Antoni said. “That’s his job.”
It’s a job Stoudemire covets.
“Down the stretch my mind-set was to take over,” he said. “We didn’t want to lose this game.”
The Knicks are 1-0, but it’s just the first game of a difficult early schedule that shows 11 of their first 19 games on the road, including tomorrow night at Boston.
A slow start will test the patience of Knicks fans, who may not accept a rebuilding year.
“They’ve been waiting and this is supposed to be the year,” Frazier said. “They’re looking for something from the get-go. If [the Knicks] get off to a poor start, I think the pressure would overwhelm them because they’re a young team.”
If it overwhelms Stoudemire, the Knicks are done. So far, he looks to have broad enough shoulders to carry the weight of the Knicks’ season and fans’ expectations. But he’ll need help. The reclamation of this franchise was never meant to be a one-man job.
george.willis@nypost.com