Knicks coach Mike Woodson spoke with the frustrated Amar’e Stoudemire, and both agreed it was time to increase the forward’s workload.
In practice.
At this point, Stoudemire — who underwent three knee surgeries in 10 months, most recently this summer — will try anything. After all, he said, playing in five-minute bursts is useless. So maybe more practice time would mean more game time.
“It’s tough to play five minutes and expect to be great in five minutes. It’s almost impossible,” Stoudemire said Saturday before the Knicks were blasted 110-90 by the Hawks, and hours after he chatted with Woodson. “Like Woody said, he doesn’t know ever in the history of the game that a high-caliber player had to deal with something like this.
“It’s hard for myself, hard for him to coach. The common goal is to increase the minutes, which I think the doc has already cleared, and then for me to get reps in practice where I can really get a game type situation going.”
In a 5:14 first-half appearance Saturday that drew boos from the crowd, Stoudemire got nothing going. He picked up two quick fouls. In the second half, however, Stoudemire displayed two strong scoring moves low. For the night: a season-high 14 minutes, five points, two rebounds.
“I tried Amar’e and Kenyon [Martin] together and I didn’t get a lot out of it,” Woodson said. “I thought it was a little better in the third and I brought them back in the early part of the fourth quarter. Amar’e had some signs there early in the fourth.”
And hopefully, Stoudemire said, he can ditch those five-minute bursts.
“It’s making me look like my game is gone or that I don’t have game anymore because when you play five minutes, it’s just tough to really get in a rhythm,” Stoudemire said. “By the time you get up and down and get adjusted to the speed of the game, it’s already three minutes and then in two minutes you’re out.
“And if you miss a shot, it feels the world is collapsing on you because you’re expected to do so much and somewhat win the game in five minutes.”
Woodson acknowledged Stoudemire’s frustration but dismissed the idea of shutting Stoudemire down for games and letting him work back through practice. Stoudemire agreed a plan the Spurs use with Tim Duncan could work. Duncan played 20-25 minutes in consecutive games — including against the Knicks — and sat a third game. Stoudemire described that setup as “pretty logical.”
Last season, Stoudemire was under a strict minutes limitation. But that was a season of staggering injuries and Stoudemire went over the limit several times — and was re-injured.
“I went through it last year with Amar’e [when his] minutes were over 20 minutes [and] hopefully we can get him back to that,” Woodson said. “I know it’s tough on him in terms of playing just 10 minutes because, hell, he’s barely breaking a sweat.”