Mike D’Antoni, still recovering from knee replacement surgery, ran his first practice as the surprising new Los Angeles Lakers coach Thursday on crutches. He said he was too excited to stay away any longer.
D’Antoni, perhaps overly giddy, said his up tempo brand of basketball should produces between 110 and 115 points a game.
”This is a great city to have an up-tempo, exciting game that has a legitimate shot to win a championship,” D’Antoni said. ”I can’t ask for anything more.”
D’Antoni drew praise from his new players for his relaxed demeanor during their first few hours together. The coach is from West Virginia and said he is among the ultimate fans of Jerry West, the former Laker great as a player and championship general manager. West acquired the talent for the “Showtime” Lakers of the 1980s, and D’Antoni’s system promotes at the least a pace that could be exciting to watch.
”We would love to be able to play Showtime-type basketball,” D’Antoni said. ”Now, they might have done it the best that you can do it. We would like to get some place close to that. I think that would be awesome.”
Los Angeles has gone 2-1 under Bickerstaff since Mike Brown’s firing, and the veteran coach was in practice Thursday along with Brown’s entire staff. They finished their workout with a huddle around D’Antoni, followed by a one-word cheer: ”Championship!”
He will not coach Friday’s game against Phoenix, but might take over on Sunday.
How quickly that familiarity translates into wins will decide how quickly D’Antoni is comfortable in his new job. His greatest task might be forming a bond with center Dwight Howard, the defense-minded center who will be the Lakers’ top star for many more years if he re-signs with the club next summer.
Howard was intrigued by his first practice under D’Antoni, but realizes the process takes time.
”We can’t just expect for him to come in and we have one day of practice, and then the next day we’re scoring 150 points,” Howard said. ”I don’t think it works like that.”
Because Howard will anchor the defense as a shot-blocker, “Defensively, we should be a bear,” D’Antoni said. “Until we get everything clicking, everything going, we’ll rely on our defense to win games.”
Said Kobe Bryant of D’Antoni: “He said we should be scoring 110 points a game, or something like that,” said Bryant, who isn’t worried about how the veteran Lakers will play defense. ”How many defensive players do you need on one team? At some point, you just throw the ball out there and let us figure things out on our own, which is really what we do best, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
D’Antoni said he has not made any final decisions on what to do with the assistant coaches from Brown’s staff, including interim head coach Bernie Bickerstaff, who will coach the team in Friday’s game.
“I didn’t want to come in and just go, ‘OK, I don’t know you, you’re a good coach, but I don’t like you. I want somebody else,’ ” D’Antoni said. “That doesn’t seem fair to anybody. I think they do a great job and little by little, we’ll wean in or out certain elements that I think looks better, or not. That’s something that will be determined with Mitch (Kupchak).”
