RuMbLE fish

Rook coach finally shows much-needed emotion

DEREK finaLLY shOws sOME fiGht

W HEN you get right down to it, coaching is a simple job. Not easy, mind you: look at the creases and the wrinkles and the dark circles, you know it isn’t easy. Look at a picture of a coach at his introductory press conference and a shot from the day he cleans out his office, it’s like a Presidential beforeandafter.

But really, to be a successful coach, you need to bring only three things to the table:

1. An exhaustive knowledge of X’s and O’s, the ability to adjust to the other guy’s X’s and O’s on the fly, and the knowledge how to best implement all those X’s, O’s and squiggly lines so they come to life brilliantly on game day.

2. An ability to motivate and inspire athletes, to make great players sublime, good players great and middling players successful. To make everyone believe they can be part of something special.

3. A visceral connection with all the folks who matter most: the front office above you, the players below you and the fans who pay your salary.

Go ahead and list the greatest coaches and managers throughout history; every one of them has all three, in some kind of order, in their briefcase.

We are still learning about Derek Fisher, in the same way he is learning — one hard lesson after another — about the business of coaching professional basketball. This is not a breezy internship, and when you lose 22 of your first 27 games in a place that takes basketball as seriously as New York City, it shouldn’t be.

It will take a while before we know if Fisher has the first two qualities necessary to succeed at this level, and that’s right: you only gain a complete acumen for the game by getting reps, and Fisher hasn’t had many yet. And the power of motivation is also an acquired skill.

It’s No. 3 that should be a natural part of your arsenal. Fisher spent the first quarter of his first year as cool and as calm and as collected as a man on a losing streak could be. He was unflappable. He was slow to anger. The most we saw out of him were those two odd games a few weeks ago where, in one game, he wasn’t granted a timeout and then, in the next, he had to all but tackle an official to get one.

But even those moments weren’t … emotional. And here is a clue for any coach: If you want to get the fans on your side, emotion is a grand tool. Prove you care. Prove yourself to have a bleepyou veneer to all outside forces that would crush you.

Billy Martin remains the favorite of a vast generation of Yankees fans as much for the bosses he tangled with and the millionaire prima donnas he wrangled with as for any one strategy he ever concocted in the dugout. Even after four straight playofffree seasons, there’s a substantial mass of Jets fans who still like Rex Ryan a lot, partly because of the blustery way he blew into town.

The patron saint for all of this is Bill Parcells. Parcells’ maiden voyage as a head coach, 1983, was every bit the horror Fisher’s has been. He was outmanned. He was outcoached. He wasn’t yet BILL PARCELLS, so he couldn’t rule through fear or psychology, so at 3121 he had one way to connect.

“Even when we were [awful], you always knew that man was doing everything in his power to show how much he burned,” Lawrence Taylor said in 2002. “He would get after refs. He would jump other players. He made it known to the fans that he would never, ever accept excuses for losing. I think that’s why he survived.”

Well, that and the fact Howard Schnellenberger didn’t want the job. But the point is this: Parcells’ passion bought him enough time that the other things could finally catch up.

Are we starting to see that with Fisher? Benching his starters as he did during Tuesday’s messy game with the Mavericks is a good sign, as were his pointed postgame critiques, the first time we’ve heard genuine disgust in his voice. On Wednesday, at practice, he explained himself a bit further.

“Emotions during the game are already high enough,” he said. “Oftentimes that’s when you see confrontations between players and coaches. There are ways to be confrontational and let guys know how you feel without being angry and out of control, but as time goes on, the longer I’m here, the more you’ll see.” It’s a start. Look, Fisher won’t be a great coach just because he berates referees like Bob Knight, or because he bullies players like Vince Lombardi, or because he gets ejected, colorfully, like Earl Weaver. Those guys? They perfected 1 and 2. But they all had No. 3 as a backup, too, and weren’t shy about using it. Fans want you to win, sure.

But it doesn’t hurt to occasionally show you’re as hacked off as they are, either. Especially when they have cause to be angry.