National Basketball Association

D'Antoni couldn't mesh with 'Melo

Published Mar. 14, 2012 1:00 a.m. ET

Sam Gardner

Exactly one month ago, Mike D’Antoni sat down at a table deep in the bowels of Madison Square Garden and excitedly addressed the media after the New York Knicks’ win over the Sacramento Kings.

The win was the seventh straight for the Knicks at the time, an unlikely streak to say the least, and one spearheaded by the outstanding play of Harvard wunderkind Jeremy Lin. The victory put New York back at .500 on the season and left the coach raving in his trademark West Virginia drawl — almost too quickly to understand — about the selflessness of his team and the bright future it had ahead of it.

“Everybody knows what you’re supposed to do and how you’re supposed to act,” D’Antoni said at the time, with his tie loosened and a smile stretched seemingly from ear to ear. “That’s how you should act. Nobody should look at stats and nobody should care, and all it is about is winning.

“We have a bunch of guys who, that’s the way it is,” he continued. “I feel like any of these guys I could go down and ask them to do whatever and they would try to do it. It’s a great feeling as a coach to have a group like that. You don’t have it often, but that’s what you strive for.”

Two nights later, the Knicks ran into their first speedbump of the Linsanity era in a disappointing loss to the New Orleans Hornets, but a win over the defending champion Dallas Mavericks in their next outing quickly rid the Knicks of any bad taste the New Orleans letdown had left in their mouths.

Then a funny thing happened. Carmelo Anthony happened. And what a difference a ‘Melo made.

Anthony, who had played just six minutes in the previous eight games as he recovered from a groin injury, returned to the Knicks lineup the following night against New Jersey, and just about immediately, everything went straight to hell.

The Knicks lost, and then they lost again, and then they lost some more. They lost eight of the next 10 games, including six straight heading into Wednesday night’s meeting with Portland. And as the losses piled up, the cloud of frustration hovering over midtown Manhattan grew larger.

Fans turned on players, players turned on each other, and perhaps most importantly, players turned on and tuned out D’Antoni, the coach who just one month prior had led the same group of guys — minus one — to what can now best be described as fleeting greatness.

It all came to a head Wednesday, when D’Antoni, apparently at the urging of Knicks management — who, at the very least, did very little to dissuade him — surreptitiously and unceremoniously resigned from his post as Knicks coach.

As the story goes, D’Antoni approached interim general manager Glen Grunwald before Wednesday morning’s shootaround with some concerns, and after shootaround he met with Grunwald, Knicks chairman James Dolan and assistant general manager Allan Houston to address them.

He left the meeting without a job, and what happened behind those closed doors is still shrouded in mystery.

“We had a very honest discussion; he clearly felt that it was best for the organization if he were to not continue as the coach of the team,” said Dolan, who spoke for three minutes Wednesday and took no questions from the throngs of reporters in attendance. “He did offer to stay, but after a long discussion we agreed that it was best for the team to have a new voice moving forward.”

Translation: I think your time is done here. Pack your things, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. We’ll have your stuff shipped to you.

And in the end, as all things in New York tend to, the blame for the move came back to Anthony, who received the brunt of the criticism for D’Antoni’s abrupt resignation, regardless of how much the five-time All-Star had to do with it.

This time, though, he deserved the heat. Because had it not been for 'Melo, D’Antoni would still be coaching the Knicks.

The D’Antoni-‘Melo experiment was one that never had a chance, not from the second they were paired together last February. Their opinions of what would breed success were too different, and their attitudes were too stubborn for their relationship to work.

D’Antoni was never a fan of the ‘Melo deal in the first place — one that was backed by Dolan, who sent four of the Knicks’ six best players to Denver — and he made it clear in the way he tried to force Anthony into his style of play.

Anthony, not content to fit into D’Antoni’s mold for him, at times seemed to do everything in his power to sabotage his coach’s plan, grinding D’Antoni’s high-paced offense to a halt to get himself the shot he wanted.

It had become abundantly clear that the relationship had grown so contentious between Anthony and D’Antoni — and the chasm between Anthony and his teammates had grown so large as a result — that having both Anthony and D’Antoni sharing a locker room was no longer feasible.

It was going to be one or the other who survived in New York, and D’Antoni reportedly sought to send ‘Melo packing before Thursday’s trade deadline, but in the end it was the coach who got the ax — or if the team is to be believed, he axed himself.

“I think it was a selfless move; I think he felt that he had done all he could,” Grunwald said. “He didn’t really see another way for him to really positively affect the team moving forward. He felt that maybe it was time for another voice — another coach — and he stepped aside.”

In the end, D’Antoni had lost such a grasp of the locker room that he didn’t even feel it necessary to tell his team that he was leaving — which is probably best, since they may not have listened anyway.

But ‘Melo, understandably, wanted nothing to do with talk of D’Antoni’s departure, and spent much of his seven minutes in front of a massive horde of reporters denying culpability Wednesday.

“I didn’t have anything to do with that,” said Anthony, who acknowledged that he and D’Antoni met before shootaround to discuss the direction of the team.

“That was coach’s decision. I really don’t know what his mindset was at, what he was thinking as far as his decision to step down. … He would tell you that we never had any issues. Any disagreement he had with us as a team, we talked it out and went from there.

“There’s no bad blood between myself and Mike D’Antoni and the guys on the team or anything like that. We respect his decision and he said he did what was best for the team. At this time, we have no choice but to support him.”

But for a guy who was oh-so-sad to see D’Antoni go, Anthony sure didn’t have much problem talking about what he had to give up playing under his now-former coach.

“I had to sacrifice, and it was a sacrifice that I made,” Anthony said. “Early in the season when coach wanted me to play point-forward, we were still trying to figure it out. Then I got hurt and Jeremy Lin came out overnight and put us back to a .500 team and got us playing great basketball. When I got back, I had to sacrifice for Mike D’Antoni’s system, and I had no problem with that.”

He’ll also have no problem playing for interim coach Mike Woodson, the former Atlanta Hawks head man who brings a much-needed defensive mindset to the Knicks locker room, as well as an isolation-based offensive gameplan that, not surprisingly, should suit ‘Melo’s style.

“I just made sure that they understand that I’m in their corner and I’m going to do everything possible to help us win basketball games — that’s my job,” Woodson said of his new position. “I’m going to be held accountable and I’m going to make damn sure that they’re held accountable.

“I’m not going to question anything that Mike D’Antoni did. I thought he did an excellent job. Unfortunately, he felt the way he felt and he moved on. I sat right next to him, and it’s my job now as the head coach to continue to push. I don’t know any other way.”

The Woodson Era got off to a rousing start Wednesday, as the Knicks rode 25 points from J.R. Smith, 20 points from Steve Novak, 17 points form Amar’e Stoudemire and 16 points from Anthony to a 121-79 win over the Blazers.

The Knicks hit 19 3-pointers in the rout, which bordered on embarrassing for the Blazers in the fourth quarter, when New York scored 43 points — the most for the Knicks in a period since 1996.

“It was an unfortunate day, but from a basketball standpoint, we had a lot of fun on the court,” Anthony said. “We responded well with our backs against the wall. Under the circumstances, I thought we came out, put all that stuff aside and had fun. We haven’t had fun like that since I got here.”

Anthony had fun. He had fun playing basketball without restrictions. He had fun not having to fit into a coach’s mold for what he thought he should be. He had fun with D’Antoni out of the picture.

And though it may not have been malicious, Anthony, like Dolan, is hardly apologetic about pushing his former coach out the door.

“At times, change can be for the better,” Anthony said. “This is an unfortunate situation with Coach Mike, but sometimes you need something to spark off for guys to wake up and say, ‘OK something’s real right here, and we’ve got to change it.’ I’m not speaking for coach, but I think that’s how he felt.”

For a time last month, it seemed as though Lin’s emergence had saved D’Antoni his job, and D’Antoni spent most of that time walking on cloud nine — repeatedly going out of his way to praise his team’s cohesiveness, like he did after the Sacramento win.

But Lin’s style and the success that it bred wasn’t meant to jive with the 'Melo-drama that ensued upon Anthony’s return. And in the end, the birth of Linsanity provided nothing more than a stay of execution for D’Antoni, a coach whose star player and, worse, his boss wanted nothing to do with getting him off the hot seat.

“I want to be clear,” Dolan said Wednesday. “I believe in our players. I believe in our talent. I believe in their commitment to get the team together and to get this right. I believe that we have the talent and the character to succeed, and I believe these guys can do it. … The season is not over and this team could still be the team that our fans hoped it could be.”

He just didn’t believe D’Antoni — the man who just last month put into action the plan that revived a hibernating Knicks fanbase — could be the guy to lead them there.

So as the city of New York celebrated the first win in what seemed like forever Wednesday night, D’Antoni, a likeable coach who wanted nothing more than to see his guys put the team first, rode off into the bright lights of Broadway, ready for his next coaching challenge.

Follow Sam Gardner on Twitter.