Tyson Chandler takes pleasure in beating his old team

NBA NEW YORK -- For Tyson Chandler, sitting near his locker on Sunday afternoon here at Madison Square Garden was not easy. He had taken a hard fall in the second half of the Knicks’ game with the Mavericks, so hard that he hurt both his tailbone and his left wrist (X-rays after the game were negative). “This is the worst I felt all season,” he said. “I had a tough night.”

Worth it. For the first time this year, Chandler had the chance to square off against Dallas, the team he helped to an NBA championship last season, and, despite the bumps and bruises, things went well—Chandler had 14 points, 10 rebounds and three blocked shots in the Knicks’ 104-97 win. That was especially rewarding for Chandler who, earlier in the day, pointed out that when he became a free agent after last season, the Mavericks showed zero interest in keeping him. He said Dallas had decided all along to go in a different direction—the Mavericks want cap space to make major pitches to star players like Dwight Howard next summer.

That’s a reasonable approach, but it did not sit well with Chandler.

“We never really got into a negotiation,” Chandler said. “I was disappointed by that because I felt, if they brought that team back, we would have a chance to win it again. You want a chance to defend the title when you win it. I was disappointed.”

Chandler said all he heard from Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was in an email. When he saw Cuban before the game, Chandler said, the conversation was limited. “Just hello,” Chandler said with a wry smile.

Chandler, though, has filed away any bitterness toward the Mavericks and is focused on his present. As a free agent in December, he nearly signed with the Warriors, until the Knicks made the bold move of cutting point guard Chauncey Billups and offering Chandler a four-year deal worth about $58 million. Not long ago, when the Knicks were 8-15, that looked like questionable judgment. But with the emergence of point guard Jeremy Lin and the Knicks’ run of eight wins in nine games, including the big win over the Mavs on Sunday, Chandler’s situation has changed.

“I am loving the fact that I really feel like the team I am on now can really contend,” Chandler said. “I feel like everything happens for a reason. Now, playing with these players, the young talent that we have, the addition of J.R. Smith, it just makes us huge. We’re a full team now. We’re very deep at every position. It wasn’t like that when I first came here. I felt like with the pieces we had here, we could eventually become contenders. Now, we have got to take advantage of what we have here.”

That, for Chandler, would be the best message he could send the Dallas front office.