O’Quinn: Was wrong to yell at Hornacek
WASHINGTON — Kyle O’Quinn admitted he was wrong for yelling angrily at coach Jeff Hornacek during Friday’s loss to the Timberwolves, and chalked up the ugly incident to a “heat-of-the-moment” reaction that is not indicative of his of respect (or lack thereof) for his coach. He stopped short of an apology, however. “I’d be the first one to say that my wrong reaction was the wrong one,” said O’Quinn, who sat out Sunday’s game against the Wizards with a sore hip. “I shouldn’t have come back. Just because somebody is yelling at me I shouldn’t yell back. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Just after O’Quinn arrived late to contest a 3-pointer from Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns, the center was captured on video shouting obscenities at Hornacek as he walked back to the bench.
In a different video, Hornacek was seen going back at O’Quinn and making a movement toward the 25-year-old, only to be held back by assistant Kurt Rambis. MSG Network highlighted the altercation in its half-time and postgame shows, but reporters at the arena ignored the subject following the loss.
“(Hornacek) felt I didn’t close out on KarlAnthony Towns. He’s a competitor, ex-player. I’m sure if he was in position he would’ve done something different back in his day,” O’Quinn said. “And I was fired up about the game, I felt it was a winnable game. And it’s just a reaction.
“I saw (the video) before it before you saw it. My phone was buzzing,” O’Quinn added. “My mom was the first one to call me. She don’t play that. She don’t play that kind of stuff. But I explained to her just like I explained to her that it was a bang-bang play. But she understood. She trusted my judgement and I told her what it is. She knows I respect coach so there’s nothing to trip about.”
If the scene sounds familiar it’s because another Knicks center, Joakim Noah, was exiled from the team for his own altercation with Hornacek. He got into it with the Knicks coach in January over playing time and still hasn’t returned to the team. But this situation didn’t even require a follow-up conversation, according to both parties, and O’Quinn was immediately re-inserted in the game before he fouled out.
“It was over and soon as the time out was,” Hornacek said. “That happens sometimes with teams and guys want to win. That’s that.”
Although the Knicks were diffusing the concept of tension, the optics are awful when considering that Hornacek is, in many ways, acting as a lameduck coach and O’Quinn has been trumpeted as a locker-room leader.
Before the Noah altercation, Hornacek was the head coach in Phoenix when Markieff Morris threw a towel at him. It was viewed as a sign Hornacek wasn’t respected by his players and, about one month later, he was fired. Still, O’Quinn implied that media members don’t have the frame of reference to understand why he was so upset on Friday.
“It was definitely my responsibility (to stop Towns), it was the guy I was guarding,” he said. “It was just a disagreement on the court. Like I said, he was an ex-player maybe he would’ve put himself in that situation. Maybe he would’ve jammed him a little more and made him drive or something. Different point of views just like you have a point of view about the game that you never played. So it’s just different when you play.”