Rookie Stephen Curry still sounded disappointed he is not a Knick before last night’s game.
Curry had to be even more disappointed after the game, when Warriors Don Nelson didn’t trust him enough at the Garden to play him more than 2:35 — which included the game’s final 1:30 of garbage time. Before Curry got in late, fans behind the Golden State bench chanted, “We want Curry.”
Nelson said he wanted to play his veterans as much as possible and not leave the game in the hands of a rookie. However, Curry was averaging 30 minutes a night and only lost his starting job the game before.
Curry said repeatedly before the draft he hoped he would be drafted by the Knicks because he loved the Garden and Mike D’Antoni’s system.
Asked before his Garden debut last night if it was bittersweet being back here not in a Knick jersey, Curry said, “I think so. I played here last year against West Virginia. I’m familiar with the arena. I came close to coming here. I’ll try to treat it like a normal game.”
It hasn’t been a bed of roses for Curry, as the Warriors have been mired in controversy. The fans at the Garden’s Theatre, where the draft is held, booed when Nelson snapped him up wit the seventh pick of the draft — a palpable disappointment flooding the stands.
“That was interesting,” Curry said last night. “With the fan reaction and all that, it meant a lot to me that I had fans who really wanted me to come here. [They were] kind of disappointed when it didn’t happen.”
Nelson never thought twice when he ruined the Garden party on Draft night last June, robbing the Knicks of their No. 1 target.
The Knicks, selecting eighth, took power forward Jordan Hill, who has not make the rotation.
“He was our favorite player other than [Blake] Griffin,” said Nelson, the former Knicks coach who warred with Patrick Ewing. “When he was there, there was no doubt who we’d take.”
The flaky Nelson was at his goofiest before the game when explaining why Curry was out of the starting lineup. “I took him out of the starting lineup because he doesn’t have enough tattoos.”
Turning serious, Nelson said, “He just needs experience more than anything. We think he’s going to be terrific. He’s got all the ingredients to be a very special player. He’s just young, plays a tough position. We’ll bring him along slowly. He’s definitely going to be very good.”
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After two DNPs, Darko Milicic got a four-minute run in the third. Before the game, D’Antoni said Milicic was out of the rotation for the foreseeable future because they wanted to speed up the attack. . . . G Toney Douglas was taken out of the starting lineup because of a stomach virus, but scored 15 points off the bench. . . . David Lee committed four turnovers and sat much of the second half. . . . Danilo Gallinari made his first four shots and finished with 19 points (7-of-10).