By MARC BERMAN

SAN FRANCISCO – What Mike D’Antoni did yesterday after practice, in telling the beat writers the Portland loss was his fault and he “screwed up, period” was as refreshing as a San Francisco bay breeze.

Jeff Van Gundy and Larry Brown have generically taken blame, saying stuff that it’s on them for not getting the team to play harder. But D’Antoni’s confession that he didn’t even realize the club had a foul to give in the last seconds against Brandon Roy is unprecedented for a coach.

Isiah Thomas would still be spinning it, until he dropped to the court from dizziness. That said, there is a self-serving nature to his fullfledged confession. He knows it would look good to his players to not only apologize to them, but to the public.

D’Antoni has not been forthcoming about another topic and issue he wishes he could have back on opening night. In fact, dare ask him a question about the future Celtic point guard and you’ll get stammers and daggers. Trust me. Been there.

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Poor Jamal Crawford. He gets overshadowed all the time. Here he is taking on the Knicks, who actually miss his late-game theatrics, and it’s all about the VG-David Lee flap, Roy, D’Antoni and timeouts. Even though he slayed me in his now-dead blog, I’ll give Crawford some love. I say he gets 40 tonight in a Golden State win. This is the city where Crawford awoke to a critical column I had written a couple of years ago that had “Crawful” in the headline. I’ll never forget that practice at the same SF health club I’m heading to now for shootaround. Crawford looked at me through the practice as if I had murdered his dog. (Jamal, I don’t do the headlines in the paper).

I’m setting Crawford’s over-under at 33 1/2. (This line is not to be used for wagering purposes but I would like to hear back from you Posties.).