LOS ANGELES — There was no jumping, definitely no running along the sidelines by Mike D'Antoni in his head-coaching debut for the Lakers. The obvious resulting limp from knee-replacement surgery was still painfully evident. And there was sweating. Lots of sweating.
"The Vicodin is wearing off. I got 15 minutes left before I say something I shouldn't say," joked D'Antoni, who rode an adrenaline rush all night. "I felt pretty good, it's starting to wear off now. Starting to sweat through the shirt a couple times."
The sweating was not just from the medications or the bright lights but rather from the defensive, pure-grit effort the Nets threw at D'Antoni's Lakers. The Lakers came away with a 95-90 win after routing two bad defensive teams — but looked magnificent doing so — with 119 and 114 points. D'Antoni wanted to coach Sunday but was talked out of it. After all, had the Lakers job not emerged, he would have been on the shelf for at least another month.
MIKE D'ANTONI
Wins Lakers coaching debut.
But D'Antoni maintained he could not delay his debut any longer. So out he went against the Nets with the crutches that had helped him through practices nowhere in sight.
"I was looking today for a parrot and an eye patch," D'Antoni said jokingly.
The guy that Kobe Bryant said would fit right in with his sarcasm, the guy who didn't quite make it in New York with the Knicks, went out and led one of the most storied franchises in professional sports history for the first time, a task D'Antoni called a "privilege." He got up and argued several times — no jumping, of course ("I'm not that stupid") — and no racing in front of the bench.
D'Antoni's blood, though, races at the prospects of his talented Lakers team.
"I don't know how good we can become but our goal is to be the best team in the league," D'Antoni said, his enthusiasm growing every time he referred to his roster with Steve Nash and Bryant and Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol and Metta World Peace. "You've got everything. You've got the best point guards. You've got the greatest player in the game at the two. Dwight is the best center. Pau is probably the most talented big guy. You've got Metta."
When D'Antoni was introduced to the Staples Center crowd, the cheering was evident — though not overwhelming — by the same folks who chanted for Phil Jackson last week. D'Antoni had been asked if he was going to sit in Jackson's elevated chair.
"I hope that's not his chair," D'Antoni said with a smile. "I hope that's my chair. I'm just keeping it warm."
The biggest smiles — and they have nothing to do with his medication — await. Just wait until Nash returns from a small fracture in his leg.
"You won't see what we want to do until Nash gets out there," D'Antoni said. "We'll try to be good and we'll try to do things but when Nash gets out there, you'll say, 'OK, this is how they're going to do it.'"
When might that be?
"I don't think we have a timetable," D'Antoni said. "Whether it's tomorrow or next week or next month, we'll take our time and as soon as he gets there, give him an hour and a half and he'll have the offense down and running it like a clock."
Last night, the offense was just good enough.
"We weren't clicking offensively, we weren't playing real well," D'Antoni said. "Especially to win against a team that's hot — they'd won five in a row, that means something."
Tonight, he gets to do it all again at the start of a three-game road trip.
"Everybody was saying the pressure's there, but this is great," he said. "I don't know if it was any different today than yesterday and it'll be the same tomorrow."
fred.kerber@nypost.com
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