By JOSH NEWMAN
Special to ZAGSBLOG
As one might expect from a disciple of Hall of Fame head coach Bob Knight, Mike Woodson is a blue collar, old school-type of coach.
He stresses defense, he prefers rookies and young players be seen but not heard and he is willing to hold players accountable for their actions in what is largely a player-driven NBA.
All of those attributes helped save the Knicks’ season when he was named interim head coach in the wake of Mike D’Antoni resigning on March 14.
At six games under .500 on March 14, the Knicks closed the regular season with an 18-6 record under Woodson and comfortably qualified for the playoffs as the seventh seed. Woodson accomplished this after Jeremy Lin went down with a slightly torn left meniscus, in the middle of Amar’e Stoudemire missing 13 games with a bulging disk in his lower back and with various injuries hampering progress and continuity, especially at point guard.
Despite the Knicks trailing the Miami Heat, 3-1, as their best-of-seven series heads back to South Beach for Game 5 on Wednesday evening, Woodson has likely done enough to at the very least get a long look at having the interim tag removed from his title this summer.
In the middle of the playoffs, his standing in the eyes of Knicks executives and Madison Square Garden Chairman James Dolan remains the very large, highly-publicized elephant in the room. But Woodson, always grinding and preparing, appears solely focused on
Wednesday, not his future.
“Right now, it’s not about Mike Woodson and my contract and where I go from here,” Woodson told reporters on a conference call on Monday morning. “I was given an opportunity to coach this team, I’m still coaching this team, the job is not done.”
No matter how this season ends, what Woodson has done under difficult circumstances this season cannot be overlooked. Furthermore, he took a couple of young Atlanta Hawks teams to the Eastern Conference semifinals in 2009 and 2010. That 2010 Hawks team won 53 games before Woodson did not have his contract renewed that summer. That leads us into a problem Woodson may face, his playoff resume.
After Sunday’s win in Game 4 snapped a string of seven straight playoff losses for Woodson, he sits at 12-21 in playoff games, including the wrong end of conference semifinal sweeps in 2009 and 2010. Despite his success, failures in late April and May will not be overlooked, either.
“I’ve lost some games in row, but I was also capable of taking a team, a young team, and putting them in the playoffs and getting to the second round. That counts for something,” Woodson said. “It ain’t always the games you lose in a row. We were pretty successful with that team I thought and they’re still playing pretty good basketball in Atlanta.”
Woodson goes back a long way with General Manager Glen Grunwald, but in the end, this could all be about what Dolan wants. What Dolan wants may very well be Phil Jackson and his 11 championship rings as a coach to come out of retirement for a boatload of money, in excess of possibly $12 million a year based on recent reports.
Is that number absurd? Yes, but this is Dolan and the Knicks, bottomless cash registers that get to operate, in the case of choosing a coach, without a salary cap.
“When that time comes, I’m sure everyone will sit down and talk about my future, but right now, that is not my concern,” Woodson said. “My concern is Game 5, trying to get these guys ready to play.”
Spoken like a true blue collar guy.
Photo: NY Post
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