Nell Redmond/Associated Press
Patrick Ewing, with center Bismack Biyombo, made his debut as a temporary head coach Friday night after Bobcats Coach Steve Clifford had heart surgery.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — From the suspension of J. R. Smith, to the loss of Tyson Chandler with a broken right leg, to a disappointing 1-3 start, the Knicks' dramas have started early this season. So it was fitting that an otherwise nondescript November game would offer yet another odd twist to the year.
On Friday, Patrick Ewing's debut as a head coach came against none other than the Knicks. Ewing, the associate head coach of the Bobcats, was forced to replace Steve Clifford, who was hospitalized Thursday with chest pains and had two stents inserted into his arteries.
It was hardly a memorable debut. The Knicks, still smarting from a loss to Charlotte at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday, when Chandler went down for four to six weeks, got their revenge with a 101-91 victory at Time Warner Cable Arena.
Carmelo Anthony had 28 points and 8 rebounds, and Andrea Bargnani, replacing Chandler at center, added 25 points, 8 rebounds and 5 blocks to help the Knicks snap a three-game losing streak.
"It was a must-win for us," Anthony said. "This early in the season, talk about must-wins, something obviously is going wrong. We corrected that. We took care of the basketball. We played defense. Our offensive was clicking. We made shots. We held them to 90 points, shooting low 40s from the field. You do that, you'll win a lot of games."
They also played hard from the start, something Coach Mike Woodson said they had not done during the losing streak. On Tuesday, Charlotte was able to score 64 first-half points on the way to a 102-97 victory.
Bargnani, acquired in the off-season from Toronto, came into the game averaging 8.8 points per game. But with coaches and teammates nudging him to be more aggressive, he was a threat on both ends of the court.
"I told our coaches this morning, he needs to speak up," Woodson said. "He's got to talk more and act like he's a part of this, and he was pretty good tonight. I think he can do a lot of things to help us. He had five blocks tonight, eight rebounds — I mean, to me that's solid. You can't tease me, 'cause I'm gonna expect that from him every time he steps out on the floor."
The Knicks will get Smith back in the lineup on Sunday against San Antonio at the Garden. He missed the first five games of the season while serving a suspension for violating the N.B.A.'s drug policy.
How much did it mean to Ewing to coach his first game?
"When I played, I was never nervous before the game, but as a coach, the butterflies are flowing," he said before the game. "It's ironic that my first chance to be a head coach is against a team I played 15 years for. I'm looking forward to it, and I'm just going to try to not be as nervous and just go out there and try to have fun."
It was not the debut he wanted, but at least he finally had the opportunity. Ewing, a longtime assistant coach with his fourth team, has longed to be a head coach. He was interviewed by the Bobcats in 2012 before the team hired Mike Dunlap and by the Detroit Pistons before that. Ewing was hired as associate head coach by Clifford, who is in his first year.
"It's a lot different," Ewing said of his head coaching debut. He added, "I was nervous at first, but once the game started I was able to calm down and do my thing."
Ewing does not expect to be the head coach for long. He said Clifford could be back as early as Sunday. The Bobcats' owner, Michael Jordan, joked on Friday when he spoke to Ewing that it could be even faster than that.
"He's called me and told me if I don't win, I'm fired," Ewing said.
Clifford is the third professional head coach in the last week who has had a serious health problem.
The Denver Broncos' John Fox became ill on a golf course in Charlotte, N.C., and required heart surgery; and the Houston Texans' Gary Kubiak collapsed at Sunday's game against the Indianapolis Colts with what the team called a ministroke.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 8, 2013
An earlier version of this article misspelled the devices used to treat Steve Clifford's chest pains. They are stents, not stints.
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