Run and Gun with Mike D’Antoni
New place. Same pace.
Mike D’Antoni brings his New York Knicks into the Ford Center to face the Thunder tonight, and the Knicks’ first-year coach is playing the same fast paced brand of ball he electrified NBA fans with during his 4 1/2 seasons with the Phoenix Suns.
The interesting thing is D’Antoni’s doing it when people said he couldn’t. Doing it with Chris Duhon, Jared Jeffries and David Lee, players whose talents don’t come close to matching those of Steve Nash, Shawn Marion and Amare Stoudemire, his All-Star trio in Phoenix.
“I think he’s more well thought out than people give him credit for,” said Knicks president of basketball operations Donnie Walsh. “It’s not just going out there and running and shooting.”
The Knicks enter tonight’s game averaging 104 points per game, fourth most in the league and rank first in 3-pointers attempted at 29.1 a contest. New York also averages 21.9 assists per game, good for eighth best in the league and three spots ahead of, surprise, surprise, the Suns.
“He believes in a fast pace, and I think he knows enough basketball to know that it eliminates a lot of problems that you would have if you were playing a halfcourt game,” Walsh said. “And it covers up a lot of problems that your team might have in the halfcourt game.”
Granted, the Knicks, at 13-19, are far from the level of success D’Antoni led the Suns to. New York ranks third-to-last in field goal percentage at 43.6 percent and allows 107.2 points per game, second worst in the league.
But the Knicks are rebuilding and are far from a finished product. D’Antoni went through a similar process in Phoenix when he finished the 2003-04 season 21-40 after taking over for Frank Johnson.
“Mike’s system is a lot more adaptable than people think,” said former Thunder coach P.J. Carleismo. ”To say just because he had Steve and Shawn and Amare that’s why it worked, no, his system’s going to work in a lot of places. But you need talent. Mike’s system is excellent for shooters, and when you have a good guard or guards it makes a big difference.”
Wilson Chandler, the Knicks’ second-year forward out of DePaul, called D’Antoni a playmaker because of the intricacies and the effectiveness of the system he’ll have on display tonight.
“Every set that we have is a good set,” Chandler said. “We always score, and if we don’t it’s a good play that gets us a wide open shot. So he’s just a playmaker.”
Chandler said D’Antoni’s system is a player’s dream because everybody gets to take shots.
“Some teams you have role players that have to stick to defense or stick to rebounding or passing,” Chandler said. ”But he lets everybody have a chance to have a shot. So I think that makes a lot of players want to play defense and want to play hard.”
Said Walsh, “I think players love to play this way because they have the freedom to play. Even though he’s got a system that they’re playing by, he gives them the freedom to play within that system and to use their skill.”
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