Here’s the funny thing about Mike D’Antoni’s job: Terry Collins calls for a bunt in the ninth inning, the move backfires, the resulting spasms of outrage rattle the foundations of the largest buildings in town. Joe Girardi makes a pitching change, a bloop and a blast cost the Yankees — horror of horrors — a game in April, and there are some who need to be sedated.
And good luck to Rex Ryan or Tom Coughlin when they mismanage the clock at the end of a half in September.
This is the price of being a boss in the big city. Everything is weighed against the scrutiny of a hypercritical public, measured against the abacus of expectation. I could keep an e-mail inbox devoted exclusively to anti-coach. Talk radio could devote a week to coaches only, and it still would have a waiting list of callers at the end.
If you are a coach/manager, in charge of a team people care about, you’re going to hear about it. And mostly, you are not going to hear about what a genius you are.
D’Antoni has learned that lesson with advanced speed these past few weeks, at the end of a year that, technically, may be his third as head coach but, in reality, is something else. Because the Knicks have been invisible for so long, it seemed they had relocated from the NBA to Major League Lacrosse.
Making D’Antoni a Rookie of Relevance.
And it shows.
“I get that people are always going to be interested in what coaches do and why they do [it],” D’Antoni said prior to Game 2 of the Knicks-Celtics series that resumes tonight at Madison Square Garden, the Knicks badly needing a win to stay in the best-of-seven. “I know that second-guessing what the coach does is all part of the game.”
It just hadn’t been for D’Antoni, not much, across the first two years of his regime, when members of Witness Protection had higher profiles than most Knicks personnel, including the coach. The die-hards cared, as they always do. The folks who follow the Knicks noticed his foibles, the way he would fall in and out of love with players, his late-game quirks, his occasional blood feuds with Stephon Marbury and Nate Robinson. But the Knicks were a lost ship at sea. There wasn’t enough anger to register a blip.
Now? The Knicks are part of the permanent conversation again. And what that means — as Jeff Van Gundy and Don Nelson can tell you, what Pat Riley and Stu Jackson and John MacLeod and Rick Pitino can affirm — is that nobody in town, ever, is on a hotter griddle than the Knicks’ coach when people are paying attention.
There were already devoted D’Antoni detractors, given the way his teams play — or don’t play — defense. But that army has swarmed in this series, especially as D’Antoni matches wits with Doc Rivers, who has won the battle of Xs and Os across the series’ first two games.
And if you weren’t sure, just click on the radio.
Or ask the Knicks fan at the next cubicle, “What’s on your mind, friend?”
Skimmed over — or set aside entirely — is the overall. There really is something to be said for the rapport D’Antoni has created with this team, the belief system he’s established. You want to praise Amar’e Stoudemire for nearly carrying the night in Game 1, or Carmelo Anthony for nearly saving the day in Game 2, you should.
But the coach has something to do with that, too. With injuries and fouls and the odd unfriendly whistle or three mounting, D’Antoni had his team in position to win twice when they had no business being there either time. That probably will be the case this evening, too; D’Antoni’s gameplans, as a rule, are excellent.
His endgames? If those haven’t worked out so well yet, it may be good to think of it this way: At least the Knicks matter enough to boil your blood again. They matter enough to laser your attention on the Garden floor — and its sideline — tonight. That’s something. That’s a start. Even if D’Antoni makes you feel rage sometimes, that’s a damn sight better than feeling nothing.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com