Rockets 92
Knicks 91
Knick coach Lenny Wilkens will resign this morning after a 40-minute meeting with team president Isiah Thomas following last night’s heartbreaking 92-91 loss to the Rockets at the Garden, according to sources.
“Lenny is doing some thinking,” Thomas told The Post and two other reporters following the meeting. “We’ll see where he is [this] morning. This is a tough situation. I would imagine he’s in the thought process where Hubie Brown was in his thought process.”
Brown quit as Grizzlies coach in November, citing health reasons and loss of passion for the game.
Thomas is heavily considering appointing assistant coach Herb Williams as interim, The Post has learned.
Williams is the only one of the assistant staff with head-coaching experience – one game.
Williams is 1-0, guiding the Knicks last season to a win against Orlando the night Don Chaney got axed. It’s not totally clear if Williams will finish out the season or is a stopgap.
Thomas did not specify who might take over for Wilkens but it looks like he’ll pass on his buddy Mark Aguirre, Brendan Suhr and young coaching stud Mike Malone.
The Knicks have lost five straight and nine of 10 games to fall five games under the .500 mark.
“Nobody got fired,” insisted Thomas, who will keep his promise and not head to the bench himself.
However, the Knicks also claimed assistant coach Dick Helm resigned in November – but Helm actually was fired.
During the interview, Thomas assigned no blame to Wilkens, indicating it was totally his call, indicating Wilkens may not want to be part of a newfangled rebuilding process at age 67.
Wilkens has at least one more year guaranteed on his pact at about $5 million. The next year after may be non-guaranteed.
“It’s tough and it’s painful, but this is what you’ve got to go through,” Thomas said. “My job is to make sure I think long term. Not only do we have a team good enough to compete this year but next year, too. What’s happened so many times, you always want short-term quick fixes. This is not a short-term quick fix. This is a long, slow, steady, painful climb. We’re in a transition. That’s how it is. Don’t make me do anything rash.”
Wilkens lasted a little more than a year on the job, and Thomas revealed the Knicks may be entering a new rebuilding phase.
Last night, Jeff Van Gundy and the Rockets got payback on the reeling Knicks with a desperation game-winning buzzer-beater by Scott Padgett – though this loss was caused by the mindless possession right before, when the Knicks committed a 24-second violation.
The Knick backcourt of Stephon Marbury and Jamal Crawford combined to mess up what could’ve been a turn-around evening. It seems like eons ago that Crawford was a hero in Houston in November when he stunned the Rockets with a game-winning banked 3-pointer.
Last night, both guards ran scared in the last seconds, declining to shoot the ball with the Knicks clinging to a 91-90 lead. The Knicks had control after Yao Ming’s attempt to save a ball from going out of bounds landed in Marbury’s hands with 34 seconds left. Marbury dribbled upcourt and worked the shot clock down as he stood near midcourt.
With five seconds left on the shot clock, he drove to the top of the circle, pulled up and lifted for a jumper. But Marbury decided to suddenly drop the ball off the Crawford on the right wing with two seconds left.
Crawford claimed he wasn’t surprised but never got a good handle, so he passed it back to Marbury, who caught it as the buzzer sounded, giving the Rockets the ball with 10.2 seconds left. On the game’s final play, Padgett drove just inside the free-throw line, past Crawford, as Marbury stepped up on him. Padgett flipped up an off-balance 10-footer that rattled in as the buzzer sounded.