Coaching In New York, Van Gundy's Aging Fast

NEW YORK - Don't dare ask Jeff Van Gundy how it feels to have your boss interview your replacement in the dark of night.

Don't bother questioning the Knick coach about whether he was shocked that team President David Checketts lied to him about meeting former Bull coach Phil Jackson for two hours in April.

Van Gundy has enough things to worry about: the Indiana Pacers, whom his team faces at Madison Square Garden tonight with the Eastern Conference finals tied 1-1. That's even more worrisome now that Patrick Ewing - Van Gundy's closest ally and the team's franchise center - is out for the rest of the season with a torn left Achilles tendon.

Despite all the Machiavellian machinations enveloping the Knicks, Van Gundy maintains a Terminator-like focus on coaching his team.

"You just try to worry about the only thing you can control, which is winning," said Van Gundy, who has a 167-110 regular-season record and 22-17 playoff mark since he replaced Don Nelson three years ago.

And with each victory, the 37-year-old coach makes it more difficult to be terminated.

In his third full season running the Knicks, Van Gundy has guided New York to one of the remarkable turnarounds in NBA history.

Instead of receiving kudos from his superiors, who believe the team shouldn't have needed to be turned around, Van Gundy has the job security of a new hire in a company about to cut half its work force.

It's hard to tell by watching Van Gundy, who maintains a self-deprecating humor and an almost nonchalant air about whatever transpires in the offseason.

"On the outside, he is fine," said Don Chaney, one of Van Gundy's assistants. "On the inside, it's eating away at him. It's very difficult, and it's definitely not fair. No one should go through what Jeff's going through."

On the surface, if the Knicks play well without Ewing, Van Gundy would build his best case to return.

But success without Ewing is a double-edged sword that might cut Van Gundy's ties with a franchise he joined as an assistant in 1989.

New York struggled during the regular season as Van Gundy sparred with General Manager Ernie Grunfeld about the coach's offensive reliance on Ewing. During the offseason, Grunfeld had acquired small forward Latrell Sprewell and power forward Marcus Camby to make New York younger and more athletic. Van Gundy indirectly shunned the moves by giving Camby sparse minutes and making Sprewell a reserve after he was injured early in the season.

Grunfeld was fired two weeks before the playoffs, with New York at 21-21 and struggling to make the postseason despite having the NBA's highest payroll at $68 million.

Since then, New York's up-tempo offense - ignited by Grunfeld's acquisitions - have lifted the Knicks.

But it might not have a perfect ending.

Checketts still says Van Gundy will be re-evaluated when the season ends. Translation: Van Gundy might be replaced unless there's a miracle.

The miracle is on 34th street - at the Garden, to be exact: The Knicks are the first No. 8 seed in NBA history to make it to the Eastern Conference finals.

And most of Van Gundy's players give him the credit.

He is considered one of the best-prepared coaches in the league. It is a characteristic that can be traced to his adolescence.

Van Gundy's father, Bill, was a longtime high-school and college coach. When Jeff was 10, his father had surgery to remove a brain tumor. Jeff went on a scouting trip for his dad and returned with detailed diagrams of plays.

"He works as hard as any coach I've ever played for," said Knick forward Chris Dudley. "He's as organized and ready as any."

Jeff Van Gundy is known for developing bags under his eyes from watching game tape into the late-morning hours. But Bill Van Gundy believes his son's ghoulish look can be traced to the turmoil surrounding his job.

"He looks 150," said Bill Van Gundy, who coached his son at the State University of New York at Brockport after he transferred from Yale because he was cut. "You look at the bags under his eyes. . . . He has, I think, handled it all very well, but I'd be less than honest if I said it doesn't affect him at all."

Although Van Gundy is a sympathetic figure to most Knick players, there are some who wouldn't shed tears if he were fired. Sprewell declines to comment when asked if he wants Van Gundy back. And Camby believed he was misused by Van Gundy because of a power play with Grunfeld.

Van Gundy's critics say he is the quintessential assistant coach who is in over his head as a head coach. The criticism reached a crescendo when the Knicks were struggling; now, it has eased with their turnaround.

"In this league, coaches always take the brunt of everything," said Indiana Coach Larry Bird. "If your team is not doing well, that's part of the game."

But at the Garden, part of the game seems to be about image, thus the courting of Jackson.

Garden executives apparently view Van Gundy as a solid but flawed former assistant who happened to be at the right place at the right time. Late in the 1995-96 season, New York fired Nelson and hired Van Gundy with a ringing endorsement from Ewing.

Instead of the slick hair of his mentor, Pat Riley, Van Gundy has a receding hairline. Instead of Armani suits, Van Gundy wears the bland outfits of a college professor.

But Van Gundy took his mentor to school by defeating the Miami Heat in the first round of the playoffs for two consecutive seasons. Yet it hasn't been enough to guarantee Van Gundy's return.

Yesterday, the New York Post published the result of its poll on who fans think should coach New York next season. Eighty-two percent of respondents said Van Gundy, 16 percent voted for Phil Jackson and 2 percent filled in another coach.

The poll reflected the widespread support for Van Gundy among Knick fans. During the final game of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Atlanta Hawks, most of the sold-out crowd of 19,763 at the Garden chanted Van Gundy's name. This came the day after Checketts admitted to a secret two-hour meeting with Jackson.

"It was really nice," said Van Gundy, who has two more years on his contract, with the second year a club option. "There's probably seven, eight things, good and bad on a job, that you'll never forget, and that's one. But I'm trying to get to the finals."

If New York makes the finals, Van Gundy's salary next season will go from $2 million to $3 million. Because the Knicks haven't made the finals since 1994, Van Gundy would be virtually assured of returning.

Of course, Knick fans are as fickle as a candidate testing the political winds. If New York didn't go far in the playoffs, fans might have been calling for Jackson to bring his six championship rings here.

"The good part is, having been an assistant in New York, you have a chance to see how it works," said Van Gundy, in one of his rare extensive responses to his tenuous situation. "You've seen it all, and you know it will repeat itself in some form because it always does in every sport, every year. It's just different names thrown in. So just try to worry about the only thing you can control, which is winning."