New York Knicks: Mike D'Antoni out of Place in Home That Popularized 'Dee-Fense'

The New York Knicks have won two NBA championships.

I know because I covered the second and last title run in 1972-73.

Fans can talk about Pat Riley and Jeff Van Gundy and the rough-and-tumble Knicks of the 90s, but the only thing they had in common with those championship teams was defense.

Playing defense has always mattered at Madison Square Garden.

That's why Mike D'Antoni was the proverbial square peg trying to fit in a round hole as Knicks coach. His up-tempo style is entertaining and produced a lot of victories in Phoenix, but Knick fans are among those around the NBA that are equally entertained by stopping the opponent from scoring too.

The Knicks I covered during the 70s had plenty of firepower in Walt Frazier, Earl Monroe, Dick Barnett, Dave DeBusschere, Willis Reed, Jerry Lucas and Bill Bradley. You can find them in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

As accomplished as they were at moving the ball around the court and looking for the open man, what got the Garden rocking was when they clamped down on the opposing team, rallying from a deficit on the strength of their switching man-to-man defense.

Frazier used to pick pockets on defense, while Reed and DeBusschere were rugged rebounders and made it uncomfortable when opposing players drove the lane. 

And there was this lanky, uncoordinated-looking windmill of arms and legs known as Phil Jackson coming off the bench to disrupt opponents.

There is no question that today's NBA players are bigger, faster, stronger and more gifted. But those individual talents have robbed the game of teamwork. The Knicks were talented for their time, but sacrificed personal goals for the good of the team.

It is pretty much the way most of the good teams played back then; among them, the Celtics with Dave Cowens and John Havlicek, the Lakers with Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain and Gail Goodrich and the Baltimore Bullets with Wes Unseld and Monroe before he was traded to the Knicks.

Pundits speculated about whether Monroe and Frazier, two of the top five guards in the NBA, could play together. It wasn't a problem because Monroe understood it was Frazier's team and that a championship ring meant more than a scoring title.

That isn't always the case now. Players have much more freedom, and the NBA is known as a player's league. The Knicks may eventually trade Carmelo Anthony, but D'Antoni was more expendable than just about anyone on the roster.

It doesn't matter who is coaching the Knicks next year if some of the current players are not traded or released. This is a team that went from being described as having no point guard or depth to a team that had too many mouths to feed.

Adding players is not what builds a team; adding complimentary players who fill specific roles is what builds a champion. Consider that the Knicks' seven-game winning streak that launched Linsanity was accomplished without Anthony and with Amare Stoudemire in the lineup for only one of those games.

The Knicks won because everyone who was left on the roster contributed and no one griped about how many minutes or shots he was getting.

Donnie Walsh should have known better than to hire D'Antoni. Walsh better than anyone has heard the chants of "dee-fense" echo through Madison Square Garden.