Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek has no reason to look back on past with Suns

PHOENIX — Jeff Hornacek tried not to rehash past feelings. You know, those he felt after the Phoenix Suns unceremoniously fired his two top assistants a month before letting him go in February of 2016.

Standing in the hallway of Talking Stick Resort Arena before shootaround on Tuesday, the New York Knicks head coach tried to talk about present, future and not past.

But the past did come up.

Each time it did, Hornacek offered subtle lobs at the Suns front office’s decision-making over his time in the Valley. Hornacek did, however, offer one thing he could have done differently.

“I could look at a lot of things in hindsight, just saying, I probably just should’ve said, ‘if you want to fire (my assistants) fire me too, now,'” Hornacek said of former Suns assistants Mike Longabardi and Jerry Sichting. “I was trying to get along with the management and what they wanted to do. Hey, that’s how it is.”

There’s little need for Hornacek to look with hindsight.

If revenge is the narrative here, then just 10-plus months later, no words are needed and no complaints are necessary for Hornacek or his old Suns staff.

Moving on in their professional lives wasn’t difficult.

“Talking with your agent and stuff, he said, ‘I wouldn’t worry about it too much,'” Hornacek said of his firing. “I had calls from several GMs and other guys. I was pretty confident that we’d all end up on our feet somewhere.”

Longabardi, a defensive guru, latched on with the Cleveland Cavaliers to help lead them to a championship. Sichting and former Suns and Mercury coach Corey Gaines joined Hornacek’s staff in New York.

The Knicks, at 14-10, find themselves in third place in the Eastern Conference, and Tuesday visit Earl Watson’s 7-17 Suns having won six of their last seven.

New York has its own flaws and ownership meddling — team president Phil Jackson has irked Carmelo Anthony in the past week and his influence appears in hints of triangle sets in Hornacek’s pick-and-roll heavy offense. The New York press will surely point those things out, but Hornacek has been there before.

Remember the Morris twins?

“Just like anything else, it probably would’ve been a bigger story in New York,” Hornacek said. “We were fine. I love those guys.

“It had nothing to do with me,” Hornacek added of Markieff’s final partial season in purple and orange. “It was with the organization. Again, a lot of things happened. In hindsight, you could look at things — it could have been different. But who looks backwards? You can only go forward.”

Looking back, however, shows that Hornacek left a team under more scrutiny than his current club. The most publicized problems weren’t related to him.

There was the overloaded backcourt — “Let’s be honest, the problem came when there were too many guys capable of handling the ball and trying to figure that out,” he said — the Morris twins’ on- and off-court indiscretions and injury woes.

Hornacek, after all, was fired following the Suns’ Jan. 31 loss to the Mavericks that saw Phoenix roll out a starting backcourt of teenager Devin Booker and now-Greensboro Swarm guard Archie Goodwin. Eric Bledsoe and Brandon Knight were lost to injury by that point.

“I think it was more about how the team was playing and the fact that the team, we felt like it stopped responding to Jeff,” Suns general manager Ryan McDonough said upon naming Watson interim coach on Feb. 2. “The team wasn’t competing how we hoped it would. We need to play harder. We need to play the right way.

“The players have not responded as well as they should over the past month.”

The Morris twins and current Suns who played under Hornacek might not agree with that assessment.

“He meant a lot,” Bledsoe said Monday. “He let me come out and, you know, play my game within the team. He taught us how to play the game the right way.”

Asked Tuesday if he agreed with McDonough’s insinuations that he had lost the locker room, Hornacek said, “no, because I can show you texts I got from most of the guys. That really didn’t bother me. I think that was what they wanted to put out there so they could make a change. It is what it is.”

What it is, for Hornacek’s perspective, is likely sunnier than his old Phoenix team, which is coming off a blown 15-point second-half lead against the equally-troubled Pelicans.

“This is the NBA,” Hornacek said. “Crazy stuff happens. Being in the New York atmosphere, it’s a little bit different but it’s a lot of fun. We’re having a good time.”

WARREN OUT

Earl Watson said T.J. Warren is not ready to play. The small forward was listed as questionable for the game against New York as he works his way back from a minor head injury.

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