Last night, from the very first Memphis possession, the Garden was prioritizing “Defense! Defense!” Trust Mike D’Antoni, he considers it no afterthought, too.
“You know what the problem is?” he said. “We have shown some really good stops, played some good defense like in Miami, then there have been nights we couldn’t stop anybody.
“Where we’re at is probably some place in the middle and we have to solve this problem.”
So after running a two-hour practice Wednesday without one minute’s work on offense, the coach put Jared Jeffries into last night’s starting lineup and his team responded.
The offense in the 120-99 win took care of itself, as inevitably it will even on a night that Toney Douglas doesn’t tie a franchise record with nine treys. Amar’e Stoudemire and Anthony know their reputations as winners are on the line to make this work.
But the Knicks broke a three-game skid convincingly because at the other end, Dr. Jekyll beat back Mr. Hyde for only the seventh time in the 13 games since Anthony’s acquisition.
“It’s going to be predicated on defense,” said D’Antoni. “If we can get consistent, we’ll be pretty good.”
The next step, forward or backwards, is tonight in Detroit. The Knicks don’t have Robert Parrish under their hoop and don’t have more than 15 games remaining to instantly become what inevitably they will have to be or regret adding a second star with a game a lot like their first star’s.
“Fifteen games, it can be done with the talent level we have on this team,” said Jeffries. “The mindset is there.”
It’s going to take that mindset and more work on this roster to see if the Knicks can change New York’s mindset about D’Antoni. Just like Stoudemire and Anthony are in New York to complete their resumes, there’s a hole in D’Antoni’s, too.
Never mind Anthony stops the ball, never mind he was not put on this earth to get stops, D’Antoni had to endorse Jim Dolan’s trade knowing inevitably where the buck would stop: With the head coach.
Jeffries, so limited offensively, would not be back if D’Antoni didn’t want him. But perception becomes reality when the Suns, his former team, never won trying to outscore everybody and when the Knicks keep hemorrhaging under their basket.
Realistically, the only way the Knicks are going to upset somebody in this year’s first round will be to outscore them. And, of course, that doesn’t work in the long run, why D’Antoni’s run may not be long. Having lost what he considered to be his three best defensive players in Raymond Felton, Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler, plus a big body in Timofey Mozgov, this summer the coach may also lose the GM [Donnie Walsh] who hired him.
That can’t be reassuring to D’Antoni, any more than, for all the reasons why it’s understandably hard to dramatically change a team at Game 55, the first 54 didn’t really provide reassurance that the coach was putting elbow grease into the Knicks’ elbow grease.
While playing with all the above supposed defensive riches, the Knicks were giving up 105.8 points per game, good for the same 29th place in the NBA they hold today.
The new CBA will tell whether the Knicks still will have cap room to fill in Chris Paul or Deron Williams and winning role players besides. Getting the second star was the right priority, though, and Anthony and Stoudemire will learn how to best complement each other.
But if everything comes together, it may be for the next coach.