Mike D'Antoni stood near the sideline Tuesday with arms folded, smiling as he watched players speed by during full-court drills. At that moment, he might've been the only one in the gym enjoying himself. D'Antoni's New York Knicks are going to play fast, just like his Phoenix teams did for the past 4 1/2 seasons. But it takes a lot of work to have that much fun, as the players surely realized while huffing and puffing their way around Skidmore College's gymnasium in the first practice under their new coach. "I remember that going into college (at Florida), Billy Donovan said we want to press 40 minutes a game, and everybody said, 'Man, that's like such a fun way to play,'" forward David Lee said. "And you get into preseason doing two-a-days and you say, "Oh my God, I can't breathe.' It's a lot harder than it looks on television. It's fun on TV, but it's not. That's the way this is." It should pay off though, especially for a team that struggled to stick to a style under former coach Isiah Thomas. Thomas wanted to play uptempo two seasons ago, then scrapped that idea last season after acquiring Zach Randolph to pair with Eddy Curry. When his brand of power basketball didn't work, he tried to shift back to a faster pace. The result was a team that ended up doing nothing particularly well. ...
Anytime
