It's not about who we are going to play as the season progresses. 'IT'S ABOUT HOW THESE KNICKS ARE GOING TO PLAY'. Feels great to finally' win a DEBUT!




Knicks survive scare playing Sun-and gun
By Mitch Lawrence

How 'bout those New York Suns?

"They remind me of us a few years ago," said Miami's Shawn Marion, one of the mainstays for Mike D'Antoni during the height of the Suns' success. "He doesn't have the personnel he had in Phoenix. But it's close to how we played. He's got them going 100 miles an hour, playing loose and free."

MEET THE 2008-09 KNICKS
The Knicks were way too loose at the defensive end, but for anyone who saw the best of D'Antoni's teams out in Phoenix, this is familiar territory. In their playoff wars with the Spurs, they'd surrender 40 points in the fourth quarter without so much as batting an eye, and D'Antoni, in his postgame autopsy, would always bemoan his team's shortcomings at the offensive end.

No, this isn't the approach to basketball New Yorkers are accustomed to. But who knew that kind of game would mark the start of the D'Antoni era at the Garden?

LAWRENCE: KNICKS MUST GET LEBRON
It did, when the Heat rang the bell for 40 points in the fourth quarter and nearly pulled out an improbable victory, before falling, 120-115, Wednesday night.

PREVIEW: D'ANTONI'S CHANCE TO REVIVE KNICKS
That's why on a night when the Garden crowd was thoroughly entertained until a 21-point lead with 6:43 left shrank to six with 1:40 to go, it was wasting its collective breath during the times it chanted, "Dee-fense."

D'Antoni's teams tune that out, exactly the way he wants them to, just as D'Antoni turned a deaf ear to the fans when they called for Stephon Marbury to enter the game.

"That's got to hurt for Stephon, but they won," Marion said. "I guess he'll use guys depending on who they're playing."

Who knows? It's anyone's guess if Marbury is going to be a bench ornament for the next 81 games or if he'll actually see some playing time. D'Antoni claims he doesn't even know what the future holds for the former face of the franchise. But it doesn't look like Marbury will be vying for the Sixth Man Award.

"I hate it and I hate it for Steph because he hasn't done anything wrong," D'Antoni said. "But we've got to know certain things as we go forward....We're trying to build a team and it's not this year. It's a two- or three-year project. I don't want to get started next year on the project. We're starting right now."

In other words, D'Antoni is using games as his personal lab. That's fine, as long as he also knows that Marbury can make life miserable for him if the Knicks start heading south.

It almost goes without saying that D'Antoni is well within his rights to make this monumental decision to sit Marbury now. If he wants Marbury to do nothing but watch, that is his call.

And what if we were to incorporate our tradition as a defensive team at some point? Once these Knicks establish this offensive system that is being cultivated, the next goal should be more defense.