D'Antoni preaching patience as Knicks freshen things up

TARRYTOWN, N.Y. -- Let's face it. For the past seven seasons, the Knicks, a cornerstone franchise of the NBA and one of two NBA teams still in its original city since 1946 (Boston being the other), have been intriguing for all the wrong reasons.

Off the floor, the serious and sordid transgressions have been well documented, so there's no need to spell them out. The media covered it. You have Google.

On the floor, when you've gone seven consecutive campaigns without winning more than 39 games and twice only winning 23, the surroundings get fetid and the air gets foul. Coaches fight with the media. Coaches argue with the players. Players argue with the media. Players argue with players. And all that's left for the fans to do is to come up with one chant with four syllables: "Fi-re blank-blank" and then change the names to fit when the losing doesn't stop.

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The odor emanating from Madison Square Garden couldn't be covered with Febreze. Full fumigation was needed. And it was forthcoming.

Enter Donnie Walsh, a Bronx native who helped build the Pacers into a perennial power, to take care of the front office. Next came Mike D'Antoni who, after winning 232 regular-season games in four seasons and experiencing some very tough luck in the postseason in Phoenix, brought his drive-and-kick, read-and-react offense to the Big Apple.

After a 3-4 preseason, Knicks fans hoping D'Antoni could use his seven seconds or less style to turn the Knicks around in a New York minute will need to be patient.

"I need to caution people, this is not going to be, 'Oh look, we can be the world champions,' " D'Antoni said after a recent practice. "There will be progress. There will be a couple steps we're taking forward and one backward.

"There'll be days where everyone will be worried, including me. But we'll keep plowing ahead, keep getting better."

Part of getting better is actually being able to get along with your teammates. At a recent practice, one could see the Knicks actually liked playing together. Case in point: After a nifty high-side pick-and-roll between Zach Randolph and newcomer Chris Duhon (which resulted in a Duhon 3-pointer), Randolph, in his excitement, chest-bumped Duhon hard enough to send the guard sprawling almost into Walsh's lap, who was seated at the corner of the court. Randolph and Duhon had a good laugh as the forward helped Duhon to his feet.

Sharing a laugh is nice, but sharing the load helps as well. From his in-the-corner seat, Walsh likes what he sees so far.

"I think it's been a combination of two things," Walsh said, "one, the players' ability and willingness to get into the style very quickly, and two, Mike has a great ability to put the style in quickly.

"I've been impressed how quickly the players have gotten into it."

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Second-year guard Wilson Chandler, a good spot-up shooter, is one of the players who has found a niche within the new system.

"It's an offense where everybody can get looks," Chandler said. "Not just one player or two players, but the whole team, the starters, everybody on the bench.

"It's a fun offense, and if you can have fun while you're playing, everyone wants to do that."

Randolph and lightning-quick Nate Robinson have also benefitted from D'Antoni's system. Randolph, who has averaged a combined 20.6 points and 10.2 rebounds per game in the last two seasons, has thrived in the high-pick sets. Already a load on the blocks, Randolph hit jumpers consistently enough in the preseason that he shot .500 from the field.

Robinson, who came off the bench for six of his seven preseason games, is built for D'Antoni's system. Quick enough to turn the corner on big guards and small and strong enough to squeeze through double teams, Robinson may have established himself as indispensible with 18.7 points per game this preseason. He still needs to make better decisions with the ball once he gets deep in the paint, but as D'Antoni noted, Robinson and the Knicks should get better with time.

"There will be road trips that are bad, and road trips that are good," D'Antoni said. "So, you win three in a row at home, great. You lose two. There are ups and downs in a normal season, even if you're a really good team like San Antonio or whoever.

"We just have to be able to navigate them."

Some of that will be game-to-game. In a their penultimate preseason contest against the Celtics at the Garden on Oct. 21, the Knicks' first unit executed well enough to get good looks at the hoop, but couldn't convert. The second unit, however, sputtered. It scored the first bucket of the second quarter, but didn't score for close to another six minutes as often the ball would stall on the perimeter or get squeezed in a double-team. The drought caused one on press row to blurt: "Geez, 24 seconds or less."

It's a work in progress, sure, but Walsh has seen improvement in practice.

"What I've seen is the players enjoy playing for Mike and in this system," Walsh said.

Which players will play is another story. D'Antoni kept his Suns rotations tighter than a track athlete's shorts, limiting rotations to seven or eight players. The Knicks should expect more of the same.

"I think he's pretty clear about that," Walsh said. "He's not going to go deep into the bench."

Still, it wouldn't be the Knicks without a bit of drama just off Broadway. Jamal Crawford has had trouble finding his way in the offense. And D'Antoni has already called out Eddy Curry. But those tempests are minor compared the squalls that once blew through the Knicks locker room.

That alone should be reason for Knicks fans to be cautiously optimistic.

After all, if Knicks fans have weathered the last seven seasons, waiting for seven seconds should be a snap.