Jeff Van Gundy admitted yesterday he was one teed-off coach. The Knicks are 0-1 and the hated Heat will be staring them in the face today at the Garden in the home opener. And this will be the first real test for the Knicks without Charles Oakley, a player Van Gundy and the Knicks know was perfect for these muscle mayhem wars.
Considering the Knicks were 93-85 opening-night losers to the Magic in Orlando Friday night, there should have been 14 Angry Men yesterday at Purchase, but there was only one. And he wasn’t wearing a uniform.
“I wish I wasn’t the only one always having to be upset,” Van Gundy said last night. “It’s all right for them to be upset, too. There just didn’t seem to be any sense of urgency or energy and we’re only two weeks into it, so how we couldn’t have energy and coming off a loss like we did how we couldn’t have urgency is surprising to me.
“Because what we’ve tried to build our team around is the serious-oriented player with serious goals. So, coming off a loss like we did, [it] would create more of a sense of urgency knowing that Miami came off a loss and one of us is going to be 0-2 tomorrow. I was surprised.”
As Larry Johnson was walking off the floor, thinking about his upcoming hand-to-hand combat with his long-time nemesis Alonzo Mourning, a battle that instigated last year’s playoff fight with the Heat when Van Gundy wound up on Mourning’s leg and was dragged across the floor, he said with a smile, “When you play Miami, you want that big 34, you want to go to war with him.”
Johnson and Mourning were each suspended in the teams’ last two playoff meetings. “We have a history … but for me the significance is 0-1 and wanting to win the first game at The House. We need a win. It’s a pivotal game.”
The Knicks will be going to war today not only without Oakley, who was traded to Toronto for Marcus Camby, who played 19.2 seconds Friday, but without other muscle they had last year. Buck Williams, Terry Cummings and the fiery John Starks, who paraded around the floor in Miami at the end of Game 5 showing off his New York colors after the Knicks bounced the Heat out of the playoffs, are all gone.
Allan Houston noted of the loss of the Oak Tree’s physical game and lunch-pail approach, “We have to use what we have. It still remains to be seen how we’re going to make up for that.”
Houston is coming off a dreadful game in which he missed 13 of 18 shots. The Knicks must get more from point guards Charlie Ward and Chris Childs and have Houston hit his shots, especially with elbows flying, against the Heat.
“If they thought [Friday] night was heated and hot, they haven’t seen anything when it comes to competitive fire, trying to win a game against Miami,” Van Gundy said of the Heat, who lost to Detroit at home. “There’s body blows; there’s physical contact, and it’s that way for 48 minutes.”
