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Amar’e Stoudemire went with the reliable “taken out of context” defense regarding his comments that indicated he was never taught defense before Mike Woodson was promoted to Knicks head coach.
The remarks appeared to be a thinly veiled shot at Mike D’Antoni, his former coach in Phoenix and New York. On Friday, D’Antoni called Stoudemire’s comments “mind-boggling.”
“It wasn’t meant to be as exaggerated as it was,” Stoudemire said on Saturday. “For the simple fact: Woodson is a defensive coach. He’s known to be a defensive coach. So his strategies he’s teaching me now is different from what I learned before. He puts a lot of emphasis on the defensive end — more than I ever had before.
“It wasn’t a knock on any of my previous coaches. I had great success with Coach D’Antoni. He had to be doing something right because we won many games. It was more a compliment to Coach Woodson.’’
— Reported by Frank Isola of the New York Daily News
