Coach: No need to get tougher on team

TORONTO — Jeff Hornacek seemed defensive — no pun intended — about Derrick Rose revealing his conversation with the Knicks coach in which he told him to get on the players more about their defensive foibles. Hornacek indicated he didn’t see that as the issue.

The irony couldn’t have been greater, with Rose only five days removed from failing to show up for a home game without notifying the Knicks.

“We try to talk to them after practice,” Hornacek said before the Knicks got blown out by Raptors, 116-101. “What they see? It’s just talk. We’re not 36-4. There’s always things we can talk about it. It’s good to hear what they’re thinking. Nothing but after-practice talk.

“He was just talking more about calling guys out,” Hornacek added. “I don’t know if we necessarily have to do that. We work on things at practice every way. It’s the same stuff. We know everyone’s guilty of it. We go down the line with every guy. Maybe harping on them a little. Maybe it comes to a point you take guys out who continually do it over and over. Heck, I’ve had talks like that with Jerry Sloan. Everyone’s trying to get it figured out when you’re not one of the top teams in the league.”

Kristaps Porzingis sat out his second straight game with Achilles tendinitis and could miss the Martin Luther King Day matinee vs. Atlanta. He has missed five games total with the lingering issue, and now the medical staff ’s edict is for him not to come back until he’s 100 percent. Hence, Hornacek said Porzingis “may be doubtful” vs. Atlanta but added the 7-foot-3 Latvian “hopes to play.’’

Porzingis said it’s not his call and will listen to the medical staff.

“No problema,” Porzingis said, using his Spanish. “I didn’t feel any pain. I hope [to be ready]. The way I feel right now, yes, I feel I’ll be available [Monday]. It all depends if the doctors let me go. This is the second time this has happened to me. They want to make sure I’m good, 100 percent healed before I step on the court. We don’t want this to happen again. It’s all their decision.”

With a Lithuanian on each squad, the Raptors staged Lithuanian Heritage Day on Sunday. The Knicks boast Mindaugas Kuzminskas and the Raptors have Jonas Valanciunas. They played together on their country’s Olympic Team last summer and are friends. Kuzminskas was slated to greet a group of Lithuanians after the game. Toronto is a special place to Kuzminskas, who spent a month with a Lithuanian family here when he was 14 and got a tour of this arena. Kuzminskas scored nine points in the loss.