ORLANDO, Fla — Marcus Camby said he foresees Amar’e Stoudemire staying in his bench role for the long-term.
Camby said he feels Carmelo Anthony is best at the power-forward slot — Stoudemire’s position. Camby made his second straight start last night in the new twin-tower alignment with 7-1 Tyson Chandler against Orlando’s big lineup, moving Melo to small forward. San Antonio, Thursday’s opponent, also had a big alignment.
Referring to the two-center alignment, Camby said, “When we’re going against two bigs out there, it’s good. Teams have that small forward, it will be a challenge. We’ll be spread out on the basketball court. When teams go that way, we’ll go back to Melo at the 4 — what I think is our best lineup.’’
Stoudemire, who had 11 points and four rebounds in 17 minutes, has come off the bench in his three games.
“He’s expected to be rusty coming back after knee surgery,’’ said Camby, who scored two points and had four assists in the Knicks’ 114-106 come-from-behind victory over the Magic. “Each game and the more minutes he gets, I think you’re going to see the real Amar’e coming back. He’s accepted the role coming off the bench. He can be that featured guy with J.R. [Smith] coming off the bench and it can only help our team.’’
* Stoudemire said his recent remarks that he was “never taught defense“ before coach Mike Woodson arrived were misconstrued.
Stoudemire admitted he was exaggerating for effect and claimed he meant no slight at Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni but a compliment to Woodson. D’Antoni said it was “mindboggling’’ Stoudemire would make such a statement.
“It was taken out of context,’’ Stoudemire said. “It wasn’t meant to be as exaggerated as it was. For the simple fact: Woodson is a defensive coach. He’s known to be a defensive coach.
“So his strategies he’s teaching me now is different from what I learned before. He puts a lot of emphasis on the defensive end — more than I ever had before. It wasn’t a knock on any of my previous coaches. I had great success with Coach D’Antoni. He had to be doing something right because we won many games. It was more a compliment to Coach Woodson.’’
* Woodson said Stoudemire might not play both ends of back-to-backs right away. The Knicks have a back-to-back set Thursday and Friday in Indiana and home against Chicago.
“I don’t know, that’s another issue,’’ Woodson said. “We just got to gauge it. That was one of the things coming in. if was a back- to-back, he probably wouldn’t play [both] games.’’