NEW YORK — For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
That truism appears to be especially true in Mike D’Antoni’s world.
Now that Nate Robinson is officially back in the Knicks rotation, veteran guard Larry Hughes is officially out.
During the Knicks 132-89 blowout Sunday of the Indiana Pacers, every active member of the Knicks roster saw playing time except Hughes — even seldom-used forward Marcus Landry, who scored 8 points in the fourth quarter and then jokingly told the media in the locker room he was ready for his post-game interview.
This is “not a good way to play the season,” Hughes said. “I mean, going back and forth. This is my second or third time now, it’s getting old.”
Hughes was initially frozen out of the rotation coming out of training camp and then worked his way back into the rotation, picking up more playing time as Robinson was banished for 14 games. On the season, Hughes has started 14 games and averaged 10.4 points and 3.9 assists.
Now he’s out again and apparently won’t even play in blowouts. He said he didn’t want to.
“I’m here to play, this is something different for me, whatever’s going on right now,” he said. “Not really, man. I wasn’t into it to get out there for 12 minutes, so let those guys finish up the game and move on to the next game.”
D’Antoni said before the game that Hughes would play again at some point — the same thing he said about Robinson when he was benched.
“We’ll see how it goes,” D’Antoni said of Hughes. “Just to see if he can get back in the groove and we’ll go back there at some point like everybody else. It’s a marathon and I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of him.”
The coach referenced Hughes’ groin injury, which caused him to miss three games in December, but Hughes said he’s feeling fine now.
“I’m fine, man. I’m 100 percent,” he said.
He added: “I wasn’t playing much when I did come back. It’s on paper, we can look at it . . . I feel like when I’m out there playing, I contribute to the team.”
Alan Hahn of Newsday did the math on Hughes’ numbers before and after missing three games with the groin injury and found this.
Before sitting out the trio of games, Hughes averaged 30.7 minutes per game in the first seven games of the month, and averaged 13.4 points per game, shot 37.5 percent from the field with 36 assists and 20 turnovers in 30.7 minutes per game. In the five games after his return, he averaged 2.2 points per game, shot 13.6 percent from the field (3-for-22) and had eight assists and eight turnovers in 14.4 minutes per game.
Hughes pointed out that the Knicks (14-20) — who are now on the periphery of the Eastern Conference playoff race — started its upswing after a 1-9 start partly because of his contributions.
“We did start our winning streak when I was playing, so it kind of goes both ways,” he said. “You never want to stop what your team is doing, you always want to contribute. But when you were part of the turnaround and the things that helped start winning games and now, since I’ve been injured, I’m not. That’s an unwritten rule in our league, you never lose your spot coming back from injury. I feel like that’s what happened.”
Hughes said D’Antoni never came to him to explain the change in his role.
“I think it’s easy to communicate,” Hughes said. “We’re grown men. It’s a long season. You always want to have dialogue and talk things out.”
But he said he had no plans of going to D’Antoni or Knicks president Donnie Walsh to talk things over.
“I’m really over it, man,” he said. “The mind-games and all that stuff, I’m getting up there in years. I’m over it.”
Hughes has an expiring contract worth $13.7 million and could potentially be shipped (along with, say, Al Harrington and his $10 million deal) for Tracy McGrady.
But Walsh said he will no longer discuss potential trades with the media.
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