Mary Altaffer / AP

Larry Brown argues with referee Bill Kennedy during Wednesday's game, but he had no beef with booing Knicks fans.

Mike Celizic

It was a long time coming, Knicks fans could tell you. It had been more than two years since Brown, who had come to New York as the man who would save the team he grew up rooting for, left town in disgrace, dragging a 23-59 record between his legs. He hadn’t coached during those two years, but this year, Michael Jordan hired him to coach the young and modestly talented Charlotte Bobcats.

And now, in the fourth game of the season, Brown was back in the town he grew up in, coaching his eighth NBA team and 12th overall against the team he’s always loved.

He lost, 101-98, his tightly controlled half-court offense falling to the freewheeling run-and-gun Knicks offense installed by former Phoenix coach Mike D’Antoni.

Not that the fans appreciated his effort. When he was introduced before the game, the fans who had welcomed in 2005 as a savior and hooted out of town six months later as a failure, let him know just how they felt about him. Reaching down to their diaphragms, they booed him roundly, squarely and trapezoidally.

Brown was unruffled. He’d heard it when he was coaching the Knicks to the fewest victories for an 82-game season in franchise history. And before that, he’d heard it in the many cities he returned to after abandoning one job for a better one in a different town.

“I love this place,” he said in reference to the Garden both before and after the game. He made it clear he also loves the Knicks, his home-town team.

Brown’s departure was a messy and acrimonious soap opera, but his return was all sweetness and love.

“It’s great,” he said before the game of being back in New York. “I love New York. I love this place. It’s good to be back.”

He had a dozen opportunities to let rip at Knicks owner James Dolan, who allowed then-team president Isiah Thomas first to sign Brown to a 10-year, $50-million contract, then to fire him a year later. He avoided saying much of anything about Thomas, who left in disgrace after two dysfunctional years as coach. But when the name Stephon Marbury came up, Brown launched into praise so effusive, you wondered who he was talking about.

Marbury, who has been banished from the bench by D’Antoni, had not prospered under Brown’s strict tutelage. The two were frequently at war when Brown was here. But after D’Antoni told the highly paid point guard not to bother dressing for games, Marbury told reporters he was actually nostalgic for Brown.

Being endorsed by a selfish point guard who’s been a disappointment and a coach-killer everywhere he’s gone is like John McCain being endorsed by Dick Cheney. But Brown waxed rhapsodic about Marbury.

“I hope things work out for Stephon, and I’m sure they will,” he said. “I think a lot of teams would be happy to have him.”

The statement was absurd on the face of it. If anybody wanted Marbury, the Knicks would leap at the chance to get rid of him. But the combination of his enormous contract and microscopic leadership skills have rendered him toxic.

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