Alvin Gentry was actually an exception to that rule this past season. Frankly, had Ron Artest not made a miracle put back (or had someone on the Suns put a body on him, whichever way you want to look at it) in a critical Game 5 at Staples Center, along with a legendary Kobe performance in Game 6, the Suns may have represented the Western Conference in the NBA Finals.

Gentry would use 9 or 10 players and lean on a young bench to keep the pace going that Steve Nash creates, but with seemingly more defensive-minded players. In fairness to D’Antoni, guys like Jared Dudley and even Robin Lopez are sharp players he didn’t have to lean on off the bench.

D’Antoni has the chance to do so this season because he has a young group of players, and to waste that athleticism would be a shame. This is not the veteran-dominated roster that he’s had here or in Phoenix.

I’d start Felton, eventually Azubuike, Gallinari, Turiaf and Amar’e, then be really young and athletic off the bench with Douglas, Walker,  Chandler, Randolph and, for about 10 minutes per if he’s ready,  Mozgov. Yes, it’s early but you get the idea.

Again, there will be days when the bench players are flat, the Suns had that issue on the road, especially in the playoffs,  but if you’re on the second unit your focus would be to maintain pace and focus on defense. And ultimately, starters get starts minutes.

It worked well enough in Phoenix this year, and it’s a model that I would like to see D’Antoni adjust to more this season.

What do you guys think?

But as the season dragged on, Douglas seemed baffled by D’Antoni’s offense. He lost his place in the rotation and didn’t re-emerge until March.

After seeing his NBA dream turn into a brief nightmare, Douglas showed that unheralded players can thrive under D’Antoni if they have the right attitude.

“Since the first week of May I’ve been doing two-a-days in New York,” Douglas said. “I want to become a complete basketball player.”

And on this team, efforts like that don’t go unnoticed.

“Toney is going to be a competitor,” D’Antoni concluded. “He shoots the ball extremely well and he plays hard so we expect him to be in the rotation contributing next year.”

I don’t think TD was baffled by the offense, I think he was being asked to get more people involved. He’s worked on that all off season and thusfar in the summer league. He’s a perfect rotation guard. He can play behind, and learn from, Ray Felton, and will also see minutes with him. He’s already a well-above average defender. And when you look at the roster, the players that have been brought in, as I suspected, all are good defenders. They should be better as a team.

“I wasn’t one of D’Antoni’s guys,” said Harrington. “It was an obvious thing. No matter how good I played, no matter what happened, he wouldn’t mention my name after a game or anything. He obviously didn’t want me there.

“When they only got one max, I thought I would hear from them and get a call,” Harrington added. “I was obviously wrong.”

We’ve talked over and over about the disconnect in the locker room. I know Al thought it was his team, and guys like Nate and D Lee thought it was “theirs.” It was a bad situation for everyone. Denver is a good situation for Harrington, who undoubtedly wanted to be a Knick. He was a Walsh guy, but if Walsh wanted to keep him he would have. They needed to make the Felton move and maintain flexibility.

That made Al expendable.

Like Larry Hughes, it’s easy to knock the coach walking out the door, but without question D’Antoni is on notice from the fans even more so, especially when you read quotes like this.

Boy he’s thankful he doesn’t play here.

Could you imagine the NY media’s assessment of Nash’s performances in the first 2 games of the series. 15 assists, 5 turnovers last night. I won’t mention points because he didn’t have many. 8 FGA?

Patrick Ewing was lambasted here because he a) didn’t win a title and b) because the media didn’t like him. It’s what I can’t stand really. And by the way Ewing made it to 2 finals.

He was a flawed player, we know this. But because he didn’t embrace fans or media, his legacy is tainted. Yes, I’m a Ewing fan.

Nash has won two MVPs and has zero finals appearances. He’s not playing like a Hall of Fame player right now.Is it his eye? Maybe, but there are no excuses. I mean Ewing had a torn Achilles and got zero sympathy.

Look, I know he’s tough and he’s a fantastic player. He’s just coming up REALLY short right now and I don’t hear anything about it.

As much as I think the media in this town, and nationally, would kill him (but no one really has) I have this feeling that he would get a pass. What do you guys think?

Would the media find him and treat him less critically because he’s a nice guy?

Hasn’t worked for D’Antoni….

“…Nash’s last point — We all like him and trust him — is as important as any. I have never encountered a single person in the hoops world who does not like Gentry, whose range of contacts seems endless. Bring up any player, coach or executive and chances are Gentry will have some kind of good-natured anecdote about him. Heck, bring up anyone in the culture and chances are Gentry will have a tale. I’ve never laughed harder at a story than the one Gentry told about the night he encountered astronaut Buzz Aldrin at a party thrown by Clippers owner Donald Sterling. They were outside of Sterling’s beachfront home in Malibu, the moon full and beautiful above them, and Gentry approached Aldrin nervously and said, “Uh, Buzz, you ever look up at the moon and think to yourself how people stare at it and write poems about it, and you walked on it?” And Aldrin just looked at Gentry and said, “No. F— no.” From time to time when I call Gentry, I’ll say, “Hey, it’s Buzz Aldrin calling.”

Now, get up the YouTube video of Gentry going absolutely bonkers over a call in a Suns-Lakers game back in March. He felt that Pau Gasol should have been called for a flagrant foul for hacking Amundson on a drive. Gentry was ejected but he also demonstrated the kind of fighting spirit that defines the man, a funny guy you have to take seriously.

This coach-and-team chemistry thing is never easy to figure out. One day it’s there, the next day it’s not. Scott Skiles is run out of Chicago, then he’s a genius in Milwaukee. Avery Johnson is a genius in Dallas, then he’s run out of town. There are most assuredly great coaches and most assuredly bad coaches, but in many cases a kind of indefinable set of circumstances must exist for a coach to succeed at a certain place at a certain time. When the mojo isn’t right, it’s time for coach and team to part company and for someone else to take over.

All I know is that for four seasons there wasn’t a better coach for the Phoenix Suns than Mike D’Antoni.

And right now there’s not a better coach for the Phoenix Suns than Alvin Gentry…”

“…When you talk to Suns officials they mostly have good things to say about D’Antoni. The biggest knocks I heard when I covered the Suns-Blazers series is that D’Antoni is stubborn and that he doesn’t emphasize defense. We’ve all seen that firsthand.

Mike denies all charges even though when you ask some Knick players if they ever practice defense they’ll laugh and say “are you kidding me…”

I’ll take the bait. First of all we’ve talked to Wilson Chandler, who may be the team’s best defender.

The reason why I didn’t post at first  is that those who cover the team are allowed to sit in on the latter part of practices, and of course training camp. So they can actually see what D’Antoni and is working on during scrimmages. I, myself, have seen D’Antoni and his staff stop scrimmages and work on defensive rotations, but yes, for the most part the team focuses on offense. No surprise.

Players were getting after it defensively and talking in training camp, and they were encouraged to box out, get in the passing lane, and get over screens by the entire coaching staff.

I’ve also witnessed Herb Williams and Jared Jeffries on occasion work with Jordan Hill on defending the post after practices.

And I believe I’ve seen D’Antoni go over defensive match ups on the video board in the locker room before games captured by MSG cameras as part of the pre game show.

Mike D’Antoni is not Jeff Van Gundy. Do I think he’s a coach that can win us a championship? I’ll have more of an opinion on that during the playoffs next year and with the roster.  Again, this isn’t Knicks brand. It’s not rugged, don’t come in the lane basketball. I miss it too. Terribly. But it never won a ring.

You need defense to win. No kidding. You also need good defenders and not a group that held a players only meeting a week into the season because they were unhappy about the direction of the franchise.

For all his defensive wizardry, can someone please explain to me why Lebron wasn’t guarding Rondo, something we called for last week? Forget what would have happened to Lebron, imagine if Mike Brown were coaching here and that game happened?

Tom Thibodeau is a great defensive mind, yet his team gave up 36 third quarter points in Game One and lost by 100 points in game 3. He’d made adjustments, and I’m pretty sure all NBA coaches in the playoffs do.

This isn’t “defending” D’Antoni. The team lacked communication this year. They were lost sometimes on the court. D’Antoni could have pulled more minutes, and seemed to be going through the motions. I get that and I saw it. It’s easy to say that it’s inexcusible and that the team can’t win with him.

I won’t apologize for giving the guy a real roster and seeing what he can do with it. It was always going to happen. He was always going to be here for year 3.

By the way, in studio to talk about this on Friday will be our good friend HaS.

Mike D’Antoni had me at hello.  I watched his introductory press conference like it was the season premiere of LOST.  I loved his candor and his moustache.  I loved watching his Phoenix Suns teams relentlessly push the ball down the opposition’s throat with him jumping up and down on the sideline, red in the face.  From the word go, I knew the Knicks were getting a coach who would put his players in a position to succeed and usually get the very best out of them (Boris Diaw and Leandro Barbosa aren’t exactly setting the world on fire without D’Antoni behind them).

There was one red flag, however, in D’Antoni’s background check, and that was his teams’ aversion to defense.  In New York, respect is not a birthright, and there are no handouts.  The Knicks teams of the 1990’s earned the respect and adoration of this city thanks to their toughness and the way they played defense under Pat Riley.  But when D’Antoni was hired, more than a few Knicks fans were worried that he would never earn that same respect if his teams didn’t play defense.  Yes, Starks, Oakley, Ewing and Harper brought the wood every night on the defensive end, but that’s not the real reason why we loved those teams.  We loved them for their heart and their passion and their commitment to each other.  When a basketball team has those qualities, good defense is almost a given.

Mike D’Antoni can win over all the Knicks fans that miss those teams of the 90’s, but when you inherit a team with five years of Isiah Thomas stench on it, it’s going to take some time to recover.  He knows that.  Donnie Walsh knows that.  It starts with finding a player to be a leader on the court every night.  Sure, Allan Houston was an honorable captain, but the last true legitimate leader for the Knicks was Patrick Ewing.  Maybe Larry Johnson, but even that’s pushing it a little.  In Phoenix, D’Antoni had Steve Nash.  The other Suns fed off of Nash’s intensity and competitive fire, taking on his personality (Not coincidentally, Nash isn’t known for his defense).  Had D’Antoni and Nash’s Suns team played in New York, fans would have loved the relentless, break-neck style they brought every night, not to mention the toughness of a guy like Nash playing though a broken and bloodied nose.

D’Antoni and the Knicks are still searching for that leader to strike fear into his teammates.  If you’re Jordan Farmar, you play your ass off on defense because the wrath of Kobe is waiting for you if you don’t.  When Michael was unhappy with Stacy King, he would chew him out in broad daylight for everyone to see.  For the better part of a decade, the Knicks have been playing without a leader, a heart.  And without that leader, they have played with no heart or fire.  D’Antoni has them playing hard, and he’s won over many Knicks fans in the process, but there’s a difference between playing hard and playing with heart.  D. Lee’s hustle is undeniable, but there is no swagger or attitude these days like there was on those 90’s squads.

Coach D’Antoni has what it takes to lead the Knicks to the promised land, but he can’t do it on his own.  He needs an extension of himself on the court, and, with my sincerest apologies to Chris Duhon and Sergio Rodriguez, he has nothing even close.  Every title-contending team in the NBA, has an unquestioned leader who commands the respect of his teammates. When D’Antoni finds his man and Knicks fans see the heart, New Yorkers will once again bleed Orange and Blue.

Via Daily News:

“…Gallinari, in an interview reported by La Stampa, had this to say about his season, the Italian national team, his desire to finish his career in Italy and, of course, LBJ.

“The vote for my season is 8 (out of 10)” said Gallinari. “I have played 81 games and I have again the pleasure to play after a season with big problems at my back and the surgery. We had too many ups and downs and without maintaining continuity is difficult to reach high goals.

“I have talked with Italian Federation President Dino Meneghin but not with the coach Simone Pianigiani. I would like to play but there are some factors to consider: my body and to be ready for the next season with Knicks. I really hope LeBron James (the best player in the League according to Gallinari) will be a Knick. But, however, it is going to be an important season for us” who finished talking about the future of his career. “My project is to finish the career in Italy with Milano…”

The word “tampering” was thrown around, but I can’t believe that this is any real violation. Also, Marc Berman has an article in the NY Post that is neatly tucked away behind the NFL draft coverage. He interviewed Bill Walker who had some interesting things to say about the locker room. What he’s mentioning is a knock that I’ve had, particularly with a player like David Lee. But I’m with Walker on this one, and have been for some time now and even looked at the Celtics as an example weeks ago. All coaches need help from winning players. You can also win together. But locker room leadership is something brought by the players as well. It has to be.

“…“What I can tell from over there [in Boston], KG, Paul and Ray take the initiative every day,” Walker said. “You just had guys be more accountable for everything. That’s where it starts. The head coach can only say so much. You have to have guys in the locker room take what the coach says and make sure it gets applied. There weren’t enough leaders in the locker room…”

The simple question is: why not report this DURING the season? Because negitivity, no matter how off base, creates headlines.

Every series in the West is compelling. Durant-Kobe; Can the Spurs find their old form or is Dallas for real? And can Denver get past a very scrappy and talented Jazz team?

I understand not having the Knicks in the playoffs causes Knick fans to turn their attention to baseball and the NFL Draft, and I have to a degree, but I’m still all about hoops right now. Yesterday I was glued down the stretch to the Magic-Bobcats game. I mean, did I just say that? It’s true, though, because what you learn in early series’ is where a team can be weak. Jameer Nelson, who was injured last season, was an absolute beast yesterday, and that should scare Cavs fans if they/when they meet. The Magic are REALLY good.

I’m really intrigued by Portland-Phoenix. I found myself looking at the game and thinking about how, should Portland win, Knick fans may point to the system as the reason why the Suns lost. Is that fair? I’m not sure, but I’m sure it will be a point of contention for those who question Mike D’Antoni here. I’ve said this in this space many times, I’m not sure how the system translates in the playoffs. Can the Knicks win multiple series even with talent? I just don’t know. I can’t say yes, or no. Again, I’ve seen every playoff series this team has been in since 1984 and I’m ridiculously analytical. Many people questioned if Pat Riley should have taken out John Starks in Game 7, I wondered more about Anthony Mason guarding Hakeem and how to contain skip passes to Sam Cassell and Robert Horry.

Against the Heat I thought about playing Childs more than Ward on Tim Hardaway, and trying to expose Voshon Lenard defensively.

All that comes from having actually seen the Knicks in action, which again, will hopefully happen next year. If it doesn’t we probably will shift the focus onto the next coach, where there will be plenty of skeptics as well.

I like the Suns team, and you’d think that sans Brandon Roy the Blazers will be an easy out. But Andre Miller last night made sure that this will be a long series. If you wondered why the Knicks courted him in the off season and why the Blazers coveted him, last night was why. Veterans know how to manage themselves, and Miller appears to have paced himself nicely so that he’s ready for the playoffs to the tune of 31 points 8 assists and 3 steals and countless big shots. Mucha’s boy Bayless put some work in too.

The Suns have their work cut out and appear a bit old, especially Grant Hill, another Knick target. To worry about the Suns now, may be saying that they are a carbon-copy of the 60-win D’Antoni teams, but to me they aren’t as good, 3 seed or not. I believe this group, along with adjustments and sub patterns, is the total responsibility of Alvin Gentry, and the Suns players who have to make plays on both ends of the floor in order to beat a good team. But an argument can be made, seeing that it’s D’Antoni’s model that has been adjusted. And don’t pay attention to those who say this group is better defensively than past editions, statistically they are inferior. Under Gentry, according to basketballreference.com’s Defensive Rating, the Suns are 110.2, which is 23rd out of 30 teams. D’Antoni’s teams from 2005-2008 were never higher than 16th and were as low as 13th.

It’s going to be interesting to see, but I’m wondering:

D’Antoni’s tenure here hasn’t been a good one as of yet and that is subject to change come summertime. Gone will be the notion that this is no longer his team, and come next camp the franchise will have officially turned the page.

Now I’m a realist. I understand the significance of having the opportunity to sit down with the league’s greatest free agent class. We’ll see what shakes out. Either way, I’m excited to see the team in training camp next fall.

But I understand the fans’ concerns about this coach. I generally don’t give passes, but honestly I was predetermined with the idea of getting to the summer with flexibility. To me that’s the equivalent of making the playoffs. It’s a big win. How big? We’ll see.

This is about D’Antoni. And how comfortable you are with him moving forward.