A cranky Jeff Van Gundy laced into his players yesterday, claiming they don’t care if they go to the playoffs or end up lottery-bound.
Calling the team’s spirit “lackluster,” the offense “terrible,” and the decision-making “ass-backwards,” Van Gundy also gave credence to Charles Oakley’s assessment of the current Knicks as lacking true grit.
Oakley’s Raptors beat the Knicks 79-75 on Saturday, dropping the Knicks to 8-6 for tonight’s contest against the Grizzlies.
“Oakley said something very telling after the game,” Van Gundy said. “He said, ‘Where are the warriors?’ It really upsets me when someone is basically saying you don’t play hard. It disgusts me that that’s how we’re looked upon – like a bunch of these soft guys.”
Van Gundy said his Knicks are simply floundering around in the middling East Division when they could distinguish themselves with “more hunger.”
“If you are L.A., you can throw it into [Shaquille] O’Neal fifty times as you half-ass your way through it and still win,” he explained. “San Antonio can do that, Portland can. We can’t do that and neither can the other 13 teams competing [for the East].”
Van Gundy claims there are only two teams in the East without the personnel to make it to The Finals-Chicago and Atlanta.
“Any of 13 teams can come out of the East,” he said. “That means five teams in the lottery. We can come out of the East if our edge and energy get better and that gives us an advantage over the other teams. Or we can be in the lottery.
“What bothers me the most,” he added, “is I think they think it’s all right.”
Van Gundy feels his players assume they’ll be in the playoffs, but don’t have the fire to go all the way. He guesses the malaise is due to having everyone relatively pleased with their contracts as well as some other players losing focus because they’re unhappy with their roles. Nevertheless, he says, it’s cutting into the team’s drive to the Finals.
“If we really thought we could get there, we would be playing differently,” he insists. “At the start of the year I heard all this talk of how excited we were for the year, but, [bleep] I don’t sense that at all.”
Van Gundy doesn’t think a sufficient number of Knicks are bothered by losses. He excused Latrell Sprewell and Charlie Ward, both of whom he said have the proper “pride” to take defeats personally. Ward, who will have surgery today, is out six to eight weeks.
Sprewell agrees the team is lacking hunger, and attributed it to a slew of new players “trying to learn the system and fit in.” But he also sung a positive tune and insisted the team does believe it’s the best in the East.
“We’ve had a little two-game skid here, but we’ll push this thing back up to get our record looking good again,” Sprewell said. “Nobody is better than us, I don’t think.”
As for the lack of ‘warriors’ Sprewell said: “I don’t think it’s a true statement. We got warriors, we got guys who compete – Charlie, myself, LJ, Marcus [Camby], Allan [Houston] competes. We just don’t have big bruiser bangers.”
Van Gundy later backed off his sweeping criticism a bit, saying he doesn’t think the Knicks are going through the motions.
“It’s not like they don’t care,” he qualified. “We have good guys. They practice hard but I just want us to be a special team. Really, all that’s asked of you is that you come on time, be ready to play, play hard, and play to win. I think we have to look at ourselves in the eye and ask, ‘Are we doing that?’ To me, the answer is no, not enough people.”
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The ‘Big Backcourt’ of Sprewell, Houston and Glen Rice will start tonight for the first time this season. Van Gundy admitted Chris Childs “disagrees” with the plan. “I don’t mind that,” Van Gundy claimed. “Everyone thinks they’re the reason you win.” Last year, Childs deemed the scheme “offensive” to him as a point guard. Childs was not available for comment after practice. Sprewell, who will do the bulk of the ballhandling in the Big Backcourt, yesterday gave opponents an edge by admitting he struggles mightily when he’s forced to dribble to his left and run plays from that side . . . Van Gundy hopes Rice will start shooting without hesitation.