Eastern Conference Insider: D'Antoni, Brown do it their way

Bobcats coach Larry Brown made his return to Madison Square Garden Wednesday night, the place where he lasted just one season as coach and the only stop on his nine-team NBA coaching tour where he left with a losing record.

In Brown's old spot on the New York bench sits Mike D'Antoni, trying to clean up the mess that Brown helped create.

At first glance, the two are polar opposites when it comes to coaching, but they do have their similarities. Both are headstrong and believe that their way is the right way to play basketball.

Wherever Brown goes, he brings his old-school ways with him and knows what he wants to do.

"He came in very well prepared with a game plan," Bobcats guard Matt Carroll said Wednesday of Brown's arrival in Charlotte.

Similarly, D'Antoni didn't adjust his ways when he came to New York, despite the lack of complementary personnel and despite his methods being criticized for their inability to win in the postseason. But that shouldn't be a surprise.

"If you look at his track record the last four years, he continually bucked popular opinion to play his way," said Steve Nash, D'Antoni's former point guard, on Tuesday. "He continually scoffed at the notion that we needed to change dramatically. He has conviction in what he does and he's a guy that definitely is going to stick to his plan and doesn't want anyone to tell him he's wrong."

Of course, there are more differences between Brown and D'Antoni than similarities.

Most players want to play in D'Antoni's run-and-fun system, while playing for Brown can seem more like a real job, especially for young players who aren't used to a tough coach.

"Coach [Brown] is very, very hard on rookies, at times overwhelmingly difficult on rookies, mentally and physically," said Knicks forward David Lee, who played for Brown as a rookie. "But in the end, you come out afterwards, see where he was going with it, and say, 'Man, that guy taught me a lot.' "

"He definitely made me a tougher basketball player," said the Knicks' Nate Robinson, another former Brown rookie. "He brought the best out of me."

After a 23-59 finish in 2005-06, Brown was sent packing, never given the opportunity to complete his task of bringing respectability back to the Knicks.

Two years later, D'Antoni is in essentially the same predicament, but he doesn't want to draw comparisons.

"I think every situation is completely different," he said. "This is a new situation, and it's up to me and Donnie Walsh to make it a great situation. We'll work toward that and I don't have doubt that, sooner or later, we'll get it done. I hope it's sooner than later, but I'll go for the long haul as long as I can go, keep working and trying to get it right."

Getting 'it' right will probably be later rather than sooner, but D'Antoni will get the chance Brown didn't because the biggest difference between the two coaches might not be coaching styles, but Knicks presidents.

Walsh is not Isiah Thomas, and that could make all the difference for D'Antoni.

• Robinson might have been better off in the long run having learned from Brown, but there were certainly some rocky times along the way. Brown wasn't too patient with Robinson's decision making and tendency to get out of control.

D'Antoni, however, loves Robinson just the way he is.

"He brings the energy every night, brings it to practice and so I really don't have to overlook anything," D'Antoni said. "I'm his biggest cheerleader."

Quentin Richardson, who came to New York at the same time that Brown and Robinson did, sees how D'Antoni's patience with Robinson has benefited the guard.

"He allowed Nate to make mistakes and continue to play," Richardson said. "A lot of coaches, when Nate does some of the things he does, they would pull him out.

"That's one of the things that's allowed [Robinson] to grow, knowing that he doesn't have to rush, and he knows he's going to get a certain amount of minutes. He doesn't have to hurry up and try to make something happen."

D'Antoni lives with the mistakes, because the positives outweigh the negatives.

"He has a talent and a spirit that you don't find a whole lot in this league," the coach said of Robinson. "So, we've got to be careful about crushing it. It's pretty special what he has."

Robinson showed his talent on Wednesday, scoring 24 points in the first half and leading the Knicks on a 26-6 run that turned a six-point deficit into a 14-point lead. He hit nine of his 12 shots in 13 minutes of action before the break, including 5-of-5 from downtown. It was the key run in the Knicks' 101-98 victory.

• D'Antoni would like to put the Stephon Marbury story to bed.

Marbury is not being bought out, and he's not playing. It's that simple.

Asked whether or not that scenario is maximizing the value of a player that's making more than $20 million this season, D'Antoni was clear.

"I think so," he said. "We wouldn't be doing it if we weren't.

"If we thought we could get better value, we would do something else. But we think this is the right way to go, this is the way we're going to go and I don't have a problem with it."

• The Numbers Game Redux: When we looked at offseason acquisitions and how they might help their new teams, we thought that Jermaine O'Neal would help the Raptors on the offensive boards.

Well, not only are the Raptors the worst offensive rebounding team in the league, but they're also the worst defensive rebounding team as well.

But hey, they're 3-1. They've been outrebounded in every game, but have won twice when being outrebounded by double figures.