Stephon Marbury was not at shoot-around this morning, and Knicks coach Isiah Thomas does not expect the grieving point guard tonight against the Dallas Mavericks.

“I don’t think he’ll be playing tonight,” Thomas said. “Again, we’ll give him as much time as he needs. This is a tough thing for him to overcome right now, and he’s fighting his way though it.”

Teammates are sympathetic after seeing how Marbury attempted to play the home-and-home set against Philadelphia despite having nothing left physically or emotionally.

“I can’t even imagine everything he’s been through in a short amount of time,” Jamal Crawford said. “I think it’s good for him to take a break until he’s ready to come back. … It’s his father. It’s his family. That’s bigger than the game. You have to get your head right, and nobody can say how long that’s going to take. It’s up to Steph, in his heart to figure out when it’s time for him to come back. … Being around him all the time, it was definitely tough on him.”

The best quote of the morning came from Thomas, who was asked to compare his initial expectations upon taking a job here almost four years ago to reality. Stick with it. There’s some rambling before the best lines.

My anticipation, when I take my mind back, was how do we get activity back in our building,” he said. “How do we get fans? How do we get the franchise moving again, which successfully, we’ve done that. Now the second phase is how do you get the players in and how do you go about winning games and doing it in a meaningful way? I guess you really don’t understand New York until you live in New York. You can talk about the passion from the outside, but until you really feel the passion on the inside, people want it here and they want it in a major way. That’s a good thing, because as competitors in this business, you want the challenge and you need the challenge. It’s a sick kind of thing that you need the adrenaline. If I wasn’t in this business, I’d probably be one of them guys jumping out of planes, trying to find some adrenaline to get you going, and this definitely gets you going.”