Finally, Knicks roster can be completely revamped

TORONTO - The 164-game bridge to free agency ended last night with a 131-113 loss to the Raptors at Air Canada Centre. And with that, Mike D'Antoni thanked the players - for filling out the roster - and looked forward to the future.

"Everybody this summer will be listening, watching and seeing what happens," he said.

Bill Walker, one of the few bright spots of the season, had a career-high 28 points and Danilo Gallinari added 22 points and, perhaps more importantly, played all 82 games after making just 24 as a rookie with back issues last season.

David Lee, who had 19 points and 11 rebounds in the loss, finished the season with a team-leading averages of 20.2 points and 11.7 rebounds per game. He became the first Knick since Patrick Ewing (1996-97) to average more than 20 and 10 for a full season. He now faces the unexpected this summer as an unrestricted free agent with no guarantees he will be back.

But the wait will continue for another two months until July 1, when the Knicks finally can talk openly about the free agents they hope to lure with more than $30 million in salary-cap space that was so painfully procured through two losing seasons. And those free agents will have a 29-53 season to consider, on top of the Knicks' standing as one of the worst defenses in the NBA.

Of course D'Antoni's retort is just as built-in as the excuse for 103 losses over the first two seasons: The roster that earned all of those losses is no longer intact.

But D'Antoni, the coach whose offensive system is popular among star players but whose defensive focus is often criticized, remains with some tarnish on his reputation. He even acknowledged the need this summer "to shore up a lot of the defensive stuff and try to get better at it" but stopped short of saying he needs to change the way he coaches. He also made it clear his goal is to have the right players on the roster so he can get back to his vaunted Seven Seconds or Less system that averaged 58 wins a season in Phoenix.

"I would like to get back to running and getting up and down the floor, pushing the ball," D'Antoni said. "All the stuff we got away from . . . But you've got to see what kind of personnel you have."

That's the caveat, of course. There are no guarantees that LeBron James or any of the top- shelf free agents will decide to come to New York. But no matter who the Knicks sign, the honeymoon is now officially over. D'Antoni, who has faced some media criticism this season, laughed at that notion.

"This is the honeymoon?" he said. "Then I shouldn't have got married."

He later added, "I'm not happy that we're losing, and I know next year we need to win."

Notes & quotes: Wilson Chandler underwent surgery on his left ankle Wednesday to clean out scar tissue, which is a residual effect of the surgery on the ankle last June to remove bone spurs.

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