D’Antoni leaning on Crawford

When Mike D’Antoni was first hired as the head coach of the New York Knicks the question on everyone’s mind was, what does this mean for Stephon Marbury? It was known the two weren’t best of friends in Phoenix so most were concerned about that possible relationship. A lot Knicks fans and local media had another question thou, what does this mean for Jamal Crawford? Most of us (yes, I’m a Knicks fan) didn’t expect a D’Antoni and Crawford relationship to work out, the styles of the player and coach are completely different. Surprisingly, it looks like the two are co-existing and that D’Antoni is COUNTING on Craw.

“He’s not a terrific shooter,” D’Antoni said. “He’s not an Allan Houston type. He’s a volume kind of guy, but I haven’t given him that kind of space yet. If he doesn’t average between 18 and 22, I need to go back to the drawing board. He’s that good. He makes great decisions with the ball.”

To me, it really sounds like D’Antoni is going to do all he can to satisfy the needs of his star shooter. The problem most of us expected was that Crawford is not as good a shooter as D’Antoni prefers. For his career he’s only averaged 40% from the field, and a tad over 34% from behind the arc. Behind the arc, yea he’s got the numbers but Mike prefers his players to shoot closer to 50% from the field. A lot of that is a product of spreading the ball around and having the guy in the best position at that moment get the shot. It also helps he likes to play a wide open style and get plenty of fast break buckets.

As a Knicks fan, this is great to hear thou. D’Antoni isn’t going to completely change his system for any player but he’s working on ways to make his system work for the personnel he has. The one thing that is for sure is Crawford will not get as many shots as he has in the past. Crawford will not be getting the ball and told to create something. He’s going to be asked to pass the ball, get his teammates involved and only take the shot if its the right shot. No more of the erratic, we need a score so I’m just going to shoot.

Last season, Crawford averaged just over 20 points a game, but with less shots is scoring 18 to 22 really possible? Crawford didn’t sound to sure, but then again it could just be the frustrations with his preseason struggles. “[D'Antoni] actually said 18-22 about me?” Crawford said, “I don’t worry about that. The points and that stuff will take care of themselves.”

“[Crawford] needs to pick it up himself, but we also need to get him more [involved]. Ask me in December. If that’s a problem, we’ll talk about it. But I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”

While it hasn’t showed yet in the preseason, I’m excited that D’Antoni is showing this much interest in getting Jamal involved and letting him do what he does best, score. When his game is on, Crawford is a huge threat to any team and for the Knicks to succeed they need him happy. I think he’ll still get his touches but with a lot more open looks then past years. So who knows maybe he’ll average even more this year. I just know its going to finally be fun at the Garden again. I still doubt we’re close to the playoffs but the games will at least be fun to watch again.

Photo courtesy of NBA.com

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Tags: NBA, New York Knicks