Defense wins championships. Right? Isn’t that the old saying? Well if that’s the case, Mike D’Antoni has been doing it wrong for a decade.
He got close once. In fact, he was one Robert Horry hip check away (still bitter) from the possibility of a ring with the Phoenix Suns. Then all his talent slipped away and the chance was gone.
But good coaches get more chances, and he left Phoenix for the bright lights of New York. The Knicks surrounded D’Antoni with one of the most talented teams in the league, but he just couldn’t get things going. After getting swept in the playoffs by the Boston Celtics last year, the Knicks added Tyson Chandler to their roster. With a core of Chandler, Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony, the Knicks were going to be awesome, right?
Wrong.
After an 18-24 record to start this season, D’Antoni resigned. Since then, under new coach Mike Woodson, the Knicks are 8-1 and back in the playoff picture. The only logical conclusion is that it must have been the coaching.
While that may be true, this should not be the end of the road for Mike D’Antoni. Sometimes coaches and teams just don’t fit well together. D’Antoni and the Knicks was an extreme example of this. It’s been clear for a while now that the style of play that D’Antoni wanted for the Knicks was not best for the team. This doesn’t make him a bad coach or mean that he should never lead an NBA team again. It just means he needs a team to fit his style.
For starters, he needs a smart, run-and-gun style point guard like Steve Nash. Nash is probably a little too old now to play the “Seven seconds or less” offense, but if D’Antoni could find a guy like Nash was in 2007, that would be a start. He needs the “High IQ” point guard because the staple of his offense has always been the pick-and-roll. In Phoenix, with Nash and Stoudemire, it was run to perfection. If Stoudemire was on, the play was unguardable. The Knicks never could really get that down, and since Stoudemire was the constant, the point guard was the variable, and thus the problem.
D’Antoni will probably also have to change a few things about himself before his next gig. What’s the famous quote? “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” While he was close in 2007, he could have tweaked a few things to make the team better. Eventually, he’s going to have to adapt some sort of defensive mindset. The quick offense is fun and entertaining, but if your team is off, then you’re sunk. You need something to fall back on. He also needs to work on his management of the team. There’s always a chance he’ll end up on a team with more tough-to-deal-with stars. Since there were rumors at the end of his run with the Knicks that he lost the team, he’s going to have to make sure he always maintains the respect of his players.
This shouldn’t, and probably won’t be the end for Mike D’Antoni. He has years of success that still qualify him to be an NBA coach. But if he’s ever going to make it over that hump and win a championship, he’s going to have to look to the past and learn from his mistakes.
