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Getting Melo won't really matter without removing this coach.It doesn't matter that Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni probably is right, that his team is being granted no favors by the constant specter of Carmelo Anthony's shadow looming over everything they do or don't do -- or will do or won't do -- from here to the trading deadline in 12 days.
"It affects the players," he said Thursday afternoon, "without a doubt."
OK. Point taken. But here's something D'Antoni really ought to consider starting now: The choruses that fill the Garden mostly fall in one of two categories: there is the "M-V-P!" chant that Amar'e Stoudemire hears five or six times a game, mostly when he makes a hard move and gets to the foul line.
And there is the "We want 'Melo!" chant.
What D'Antoni hasn't heard -- at least not yet -- is the third kind of chant that Garden fans have come armed with before and haven't had the heart to unleash. Yet.
One that sounds like this:
"Fire D'Antoni!" Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap . . .
"Fire D'Antoni!" Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap . . .
And, yes, with minimal effort, that chant can be squeezed into four syllables for optimum effect. And it probably took the 19,763 who came to the Garden last night their last few shards of patience to keep from unveiling it at some point during the Lakers' thorough 113-96 schooling of the Knicks, a game whose final score could have been any set of numbers that Los Angeles coach Phil Jackson's nostalgic heart desired.
That isn't to say D'Antoni should be fired. Consider it a timely reminder that he has been given an extraordinarily lengthy honeymoon by a city that has a fleeting tolerance for lousy results. You can explain away his first two years any way you like. The truth is that in other barren times, with similarly barren teams, Rich Kotite, Ray Handley and Art Howe were already gone this deep in their New York tenures.
So it wouldn't be unprecedented for D'Antoni to feel heat. He just hasn't felt any -- yet.
But as much as anyone, D'Antoni needs to show something across the season's final 29 games, starting tonight in Newark against the Nets, but really starting after the one-game-in-10-days mini-bye the Knicks will enjoy thereafter. Whether the Knicks ultimately deal for Anthony is irrelevant to this matter. This is relevant: The Knicks are paying $6 million a year for D'Antoni and so far the best they've seen is the 26-26 mark they'll drag across the river tonight.
And it's time someone said it: They should be better than that right now.
Nobody sane talked about winning a championship this year, just like nobody much expected the Knicks to beat the defending world champs last night. It's the too-frequent-lately no-shows against lesser teams that fry the nerves now, home losses to the likes of the Kings and the Suns and the Clippers, and the fact that until last night, the Cavaliers' only win since two days after Thanksgiving was against the Knicks.
The Garden mostly has bought into D'Antoni, mostly believed in him, the faithful have been as patient as any true believers around here have ever been. D'Antoni is smart enough to know that, smart enough to realize he's been given an amazingly long rope.
But he really needs to be careful. Because even if he didn't mean to imply that Knicks fans ought to shut up, it certainly could be interpreted that way. And some already did. If that's how D'Antoni feels, if it's what he believes, he has every right to speak his mind. One of the courtside visitors last night, a fellow named Rex Ryan, certainly would endorse that.
But it's worth noting that when Ryan's smiling face was flashed on the video board last night, the Jets coach looking resplendent in a throwback No. 10 Clyde Frazier jersey, he received a far louder ovation than anything D'Antoni has heard in a long time, maybe going back to his first home game 2? years ago.
No coach in recent memory has been given this long a pass without hearing a rebuttal from the disaffected masses. And that's something that could go away in a hurry.
Such as, the instant the fans grow tired of chanting for Carmelo Anthony's acquisition . . . and start chanting for the coach's departure instead.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/knic...ants_can_e3VVyrWlrFTlDm02JL5WwL#ixzz1DkXMRU00
Flaws have been exposed.
Limitations are apparent.
Conclusions have been reached.
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