NEW YORK _ Jeff Hornacek coached a game Wednesday night. He huddled and strategized and paced the sideline _ you know, all that good, coachy stuff. But hours before he was in a small room in the bowels of Madison Square Garden, playing the part of the kid caught up in the world's most acrimonious divorce.
"It's a distraction," he finally admitted on the heels of yet another Phil Jackson tweet that appeared to be critical of Carmelo Anthony. "Everything that gets out there _ OK, whatever. Hopefully it's not a distraction for our guys. Stuff that comes out with Phil and Carmelo, Carmelo handles it great. He's handled it great the whole year."
Hornacek smiled freely, and facetiously opened the pregame news conference with a "No comment" _ trying to bring levity to an unhealthy situation. But even occasional quips delivered in that easygoing Midwestern drawl couldn't hide the fact that the increasingly tense relationship between Jackson and Anthony is threatening to unravel a team that doesn't need extra help in that department. Hornacek wants Anthony to stay, he said; Jackson wants him out, it seems. And Anthony, who has a full no-trade clause, hasn't said much of anything at all.
Hornacek was asked about the level of dysfunction surrounding the team and if it was "worse" than he expected. "I was warned," he said. "But it was expected that there was going to be something all the time. It's lived up to the billing."
When approached by reporters before the game against the Clippers, Anthony strolled by and declined to comment.
"He's got the no-trade. He can do whatever he wants," Hornacek said. "We would love to have him here. I think he's a great player."
Of Jackson, he said: "Whatever he wrote, you might want to ask him. I can't interpret what he says. I didn't understand what he was trying to get at."
On Tuesday, Jackson tweeted that a Bleacher Report article criticizing Anthony "almost rings the bell" and compared Anthony to NBA flameout Michael Graham. "I learned you don't change the spot on a leopard with Michael Graham in my CBA daze," he wrote.
At various points this season, Jackson has implied that Anthony is a selfish player who holds the ball too long and clogs up the Knicks' attempts at a triangle offense. The most consistent knock is that Anthony is not a winner.
"I think he wants to win," Hornacek said. "He's never once come and tried to get out of practice. That's usually the sign of a guy who doesn't care about winning _ he makes an excuse. That's not Carmelo. He comes out there and he plays. He wants to win. There's no doubt about it."
