ALBANY — For a coach who says his first unit needs to spend more time on the court together, it wasn’t here last night that Mike Woodson decided that process should continue.
In a 109-98 preseason loss to the Celtics at the Times Union Center, just about halfway between Boston and New York, the Knicks coach sat four of his key players, much to the dismay of the 13,260 in attendance.
In the second game of a back-to-back, and the third of five games in seven nights to wrap up the preseason schedule, Woodson sat Carmelo Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire, Tyson Chandler and Jason Kidd. The Knicks (2-2) are the oldest team in the NBA, and this was one of the nights where gelling as a team was put on a back burner for resting as a long season on weary legs awaits.
“They do need to be on the floor more,” Woodson said of his first unit that at times looked disjointed in their 107-88 loss to the Raptors on Friday. “I think as we get to that last [preseason] game next Wednesday, I should have everybody back and ready to go. Then I think we have [seven] days to prepare for [the season opener at] Brooklyn. That should give me enough time to get guys on the court, playing.
“We’ll have referees there for scrimmage,” Woodson said of time between the silly season and the real one, “and we’ll have game-like scrimmages and see where we are.”
At the very least, last night the coach got to see a pretty nice audition from energetic forward Chris Copeland. The 6-foot-8 rookie from Colorado scored 34 points (23 in the first half), along with six rebounds, to show some possible worth as a depth guy off the bench.
“Playing with a lot of intensity,” is how Copeland described his game. “Using a lot of my speed and quickness. And that’s what coach told me to do.”
With tomorrow’s game against the 76ers in Syracuse, followed by Wednesday’s game against the Nets at the Nassau Coliseum, Woodson did not have a drop-dead date for when he needed to see his starters and bench at its full disposal. But, of course, he would hope that time comes sooner rather than later.
“It’s not life and death, but it’s important,” Woodson said after he team fell apart in the fourth quarter behind 25 points from Jeff Green and 22 from Jason Terry. “I want to try and get a feel for what I got in terms of rotations and I don’t know that yet. Only time will tell.”
The two regular players who did play were solid, as well. Guard Raymond Felton started, and though he played just 14:28, he scored six points and had seven assists — a handful of those assists were to Steve Novak, who set up camp around the three-point line, as usual, and went 5-for-9 from behind the arc in scoring 15.
“It was great,” Novak said about the cheers he heard when he entered the game off the bench, probably one of the few names the crowd recognized considering the Celtics (3-4) didn’t play Kevin Garnett or Paul Pierce, either. “It shows you how far the Knicks reach goes.”