Knick coach Isiah Thomas told federal jurors he was blindsided when a former team executive recoiled from a friendly hug and kiss at a game – an embarrassing public move he’s dubbed the ” ‘No love’ hug.”
Thomas said his greeting with Anucha Browne Sanders at a Knicks game in late 2005 was innocent and customary, but led to a stern reprimand from his boss.
“I walked up, put my left hand on her shoulder and leaned over,” Thomas said. “I said, ‘Hi, Nuch, how you doin’?’ ”
“I went to give her a kiss on the cheek and she recoiled in such a way that made me feel uncomfortable,” Thomas said, adding that any fans who saw her reaction probably felt uncomfortable, too.
“I said, ‘What? No love today?’ ” Thomas testified, explaining he used the phrase “as opposed to saying you’re being rude. It means not speaking.”
“She backed away,” Thomas, 46, said during his second day on the witness stand at the trial that has pitted him and Madison Square Garden against Sanders.
That night, Garden President Steve Mills called, wanting to know what had happened.
“Don’t hug her anymore. Don’t try to kiss her on the cheek. Just stay away from her,” Mills told Thomas.
That encounter was the last time Thomas saw Sanders before she filed a sexual-harassment claim against him, he said, a move that took him by surprise.
Sanders is suing Thomas and the Garden for $10 million, claiming she was fired in retaliation for complaining about sexual harassment by the coach.
A Manhattan federal jury is set to hear closing statements in the case today.
The former executive has accused Thomas of spewing profanity and then suddenly making sexual advances toward her.
“I really didn’t have any feeling of like or dislike. She was a co-worker and that’s how I treated her,” Thomas said, estimating the two spent no more than three hours alone together over a period of two years working with each other.
Thomas denied ever telling Sanders that he was attracted to her or “in love” or that he’d ever asked her to go “off-site for private time.”
The coach also insisted he’d never called her “bitch” or “ho,” claiming he is “highly offended” whenever those terms are directed at a woman.
“It is never OK,” he said.
Thomas tried to downplay statements he made in a videotaped deposition about black men calling black women “bitch” being less troubling than a white man doing it.
“It’s very offensive for any man – black, white, green or purple – to call a woman a bitch,” Thomas testified.