Knicks' Mike D'Antoni fouled up

BY ALAN HAHN | alan.hahn@newsday.com
11:15 PM EST, February 9, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - Mike D'Antoni came clean after Sunday's buzzer-beating loss in Portland. He admitted to his players on the team charter that on the final play, when Brandon Roy scored on a driving finger roll to give the Trail Blazers a 109-108 victory, he did not know the Knicks had a foul to give.

The Knicks had not yet used their first foul in the final two minutes, which results in a non-shooting situation. The ball was inbounded with 4.3 seconds left; as most teams do, D'Antoni could have instructed Jared Jeffries to grab Roy the second he caught the ball just to kill some precious time. But no such orders were given in the 20-second timeout D'Antoni called before the inbounds play.

Even Trail Blazers coach Nate McMillan was surprised the Knicks didn't use the foul. D'Antoni said: "A position like that, why wouldn't you foul? It makes no sense not to foul."

When asked by reporters after the game about the foul-to-give situation, D'Antoni admittedly was caught off guard. It was then that he realized the mistake.


"When you asked me night, it hit me," he said. "But that's the way it is. That's my responsibility. Probably won't happen again but can't swear to it. I messed up."

With most NBA teams, it is the responsibility of the head trainer to keep track of fouls and inform the head coach, but D'Antoni wouldn't identify who was performing that duty, said he should have been aware of the situation himself and took the entire blame. "I told [the players] that one is my responsibility," he said. "I lost one, they've lost 28."

At practice yesterday here at the downtown Sports Club LA, the Knicks were upset about how some comments a few players made during the 0-3 "Dream Week" at the Garden were being portrayed in the national media.

On Sunday's Cavaliers-Lakers telecast on ABC, former Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy said the positive talk after losing should be a concern for management. He said of David Lee's infamous "best 0-3 week I ever had" line, "He should know; he's had plenty of them."

D'Antoni was upset about that observation. "Jeff Van Gundy's a great coach and I like Jeff, so I don't want to get into it, but I thought he misinterpreted what David said," D'Antoni said. "Now you can interpret it any way, that he doesn't care or he's happy to lose. But I don't believe that for a second. I don't think you have a guy who has 37 double-doubles competing every night and playing hard as he can and say he doesn't care."

Lee explained that his comments -- such as Al Harrington's use of the expression "feel-good loss" in reference to the Cleveland game -- were intended to maintain a positive outlook in the media.

"I was disappointed after that 0-3 week, but no offense to you guys, but continuing any bit of negativity doesn't help anything with our New York media," Lee said. "I wanted to stay positive. I always try to stay positive."

Posted by Pharzeone:

Hmm... Everyone remembers Webber for calling a timeout when Michigan didn't have any left but few remember the guy on the sideline yelling at him to call a timeout. When Webber brought this up, he was greeted with wasn't still your responsiblity to know how many timeouts your team had left.

Oh well, kind of didn't explain why D'Antoni went into a mantra about not wanting to foul because it was a gamble reasoning in his post game and left Jeffries out to dry about the decision to foul saying he left the decision up to him. Replace MDA with Thomas and this would have been a bigger story. Both kinda shaddy actions but people like D'Antoni.


No agenda, just the truth. The only agenda is with those who want to look the other way.

Posted by Pharzeone:

Posted by GallOfFame:

Posted by Pharzeone:

Hmm... Everyone remembers Webber for calling a timeout when Michigan didn't have any left but few remember the guy on the sideline yelling at him to call a timeout. When Webber brought this up, he was greeted with wasn't still your responsiblity to know how many timeouts your team had left.

Oh well, kind of didn't explain why D'Antoni went into a mantra about not wanting to foul because it was a gamble reasoning in his post game and left Jeffries out to dry about the decision to foul saying he left the decision up to him. Replace MDA with Thomas and this would have been a bigger story. Both kinda shaddy actions but people like D'Antoni.


No agenda, just the truth. The only agenda is with those who want to look the other way.

Remember he tried to throw Chandler under the Bus last yr when we played Cleveland crapping on his defense on Lebron? Everyone got pissed at him. Then he went on to explain his comments later.

I said when he was hired that D'Antoni has Isiah like tendencies and diva moments. I was greeted with the ususal, you don't know what you're talking about responses much like Sunday. Now you will get the justifications and how we would have never been in that situation if Harrington would have made the shot instead of pondering why the coaching staff weren't aware with how many fouls they had. It's the low IQ players fault.

Posted by GallOfFame:

Posted by Pharzeone:

Posted by GallOfFame:

Posted by Pharzeone:

Hmm... Everyone remembers Webber for calling a timeout when Michigan didn't have any left but few remember the guy on the sideline yelling at him to call a timeout. When Webber brought this up, he was greeted with wasn't still your responsiblity to know how many timeouts your team had left.

Oh well, kind of didn't explain why D'Antoni went into a mantra about not wanting to foul because it was a gamble reasoning in his post game and left Jeffries out to dry about the decision to foul saying he left the decision up to him. Replace MDA with Thomas and this would have been a bigger story. Both kinda shaddy actions but people like D'Antoni.


No agenda, just the truth. The only agenda is with those who want to look the other way.

Remember he tried to throw Chandler under the Bus last yr when we played Cleveland crapping on his defense on Lebron? Everyone got pissed at him. Then he went on to explain his comments later.

I said when he was hired that D'Antoni has Isiah like tendencies and diva moments. I was greeted with the ususal, you don't know what you're talking about responses much like Sunday. Now you will get the justifications and how we would have never been in that situation if Harrington would have made the shot instead of pondering why the coaching staff weren't aware with how many fouls they had. It's the low IQ players fault.

You shoot bullets at this guy make sure you duck from the crazy ricochet action from his greeted ones.

Posted by BRIGGS:

This why you need a 7 footer on the roster. Even if he doesn't play a lot--we need a guy who we can play from time to time who can help clog the lane and throw his body around if nothing else. If we had a 7 footer with long arms and he guarded the rim two nights ago--we win. For older Knick fans--how many times did MJ get to the basket at the end of the game--rarely if ever against the Knicks. he was forced to pull up[unfortunately he made a lot of the} but still I would rather have someone taking jumpshot than a layup!

Posted by tkf:

Posted by GallOfFame:

Posted by Pharzeone:

Posted by GallOfFame:

Posted by Pharzeone:

Hmm... Everyone remembers Webber for calling a timeout when Michigan didn't have any left but few remember the guy on the sideline yelling at him to call a timeout. When Webber brought this up, he was greeted with wasn't still your responsiblity to know how many timeouts your team had left.

Oh well, kind of didn't explain why D'Antoni went into a mantra about not wanting to foul because it was a gamble reasoning in his post game and left Jeffries out to dry about the decision to foul saying he left the decision up to him. Replace MDA with Thomas and this would have been a bigger story. Both kinda shaddy actions but people like D'Antoni.


No agenda, just the truth. The only agenda is with those who want to look the other way.

Remember he tried to throw Chandler under the Bus last yr when we played Cleveland crapping on his defense on Lebron? Everyone got pissed at him. Then he went on to explain his comments later.

I said when he was hired that D'Antoni has Isiah like tendencies and diva moments. I was greeted with the ususal, you don't know what you're talking about responses much like Sunday. Now you will get the justifications and how we would have never been in that situation if Harrington would have made the shot instead of pondering why the coaching staff weren't aware with how many fouls they had. It's the low IQ players fault.

You shoot bullets at this guy make sure you duck from the crazy ricochet action from his greeted ones.

LOL..... why waste my time, obviously, you have too much of it on your hands.. I just know what threads to avoid

peace...