Larry Brown Returns to the Garden as Coach of the Charlotte Bobcats

After a 23 win season in New York Larry Brown was fired ending a short-lived 'dream job'. Both the Knicks' front office and Brown were heavily criticized for what took place and how it ended and brown would like nothing more than to put the situation to bed. He should certainly expect loud boos tonight when he is introduced, but at the same time, Brown didn't duck reality. He declined to do an interview prior to the New York trip, but he did admit that he did a 'bad job' in his one year here.

Brown's inability to motivate and reward the young players on a team that was clearly headed toward rebuilding is what hurt him the most. His frequent decision to use veterans such as Maurice Taylor, Jerome James, and Jalen rose over the likes of Nate Robinson and David Lee were mindless moves that only setback the two young players forcing them to go through what essentially was a second rookie season when they finally played substantial minutes.

Coming into tonight, both teams hold a 1-2 record. The Knicks will look to bounce back from the dead as they have looked completely flat the last two games; both were losing efforts. Not since opening night have the Knicks played with any passion whatsoever. The Bobcats are young and very athletic, but should not be able to come to New York and pick up an easy road win. I said the same for Milwaukee the other night and they won, but that is beside the point.

A couple of players to watch would be Gerald Wallace and Emeka Okafor. Wallace always plays his best offense against New York and look for Okafur to dominate New York's weak middle. Okafur is currently averaging 12 and 10 while Wallace is the teams leading scorer at 20 per contest.

Mike D'Antoni wants the team to come out attacking from the beginning as opposed to waiting for the late minutes of the game.

“We never attack until we get in a desperate situation, both offensively and defensively,” D’Antoni said. “It’s like we’re on our heels the whole game and we’re kind of waiting for something bad to happen to us. We’re going to have to get over that and we’ll get over that with just the group and the spirit and how we approach the game.”

D'Antoni has never lost to the Bobcats in his NBA coaching career (8-0) and the Knicks won the season series last year, 2-1. New York is 5-2 all time against the Bobcats at Madison Square Garden.