Story of Knicks" Success Begins at Home The question was directed at Mike Woodson soon after the Knicks" latest victory, this one over Phoenix on Sunday at Madison Square Garden. What, the Knicks coach was asked, did he feel best about in a season in which his team has put together a surprising 12-4 record? Woodson's answer: winning at home. Under Woodson, both as the interim coach last season and as the permanent coach now, the Knicks have gone 18-1 in regular-season games at the Garden. They are 7-0 at home this season, making them one of three clubs - along with the Miami Heat (8-0) and the Utah Jazz (6-0) - undefeated on their own court going into Monday night's games. For the Knicks, it is the best start at the Garden since the 1992-93 season, when Pat Riley got the team off to a 9-0 start at home on the way to a 60-22 regular season and a trip to the Eastern Conference finals, where they lost to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. This year's start is in sharp contrast to how they began at home just a season ago, when they lost two of their first three games at the Garden, and six of their first nine. That, of course, was when Mike D'Antoni was still in charge of the Knicks. In his three-plus seasons with the team, he went 72-72 at the Garden, which is not particularly impressive, but then again he spent two of those years coaching a team that management was trying to disassemble so it could start over. Woodson, in contrast, is presiding over a team whose ambitions keep growing larger. And he is proud of how well they have played at home this season, never once really being challenged by the opposing team. "When we step on that floor, our fans expect us to win," Woodson said. That's where you want to be when you're talking about trying to build a team. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Woodson is one of five N.B.A. coaches in the last 20 seasons who have won at least 18 games in their first 20 home games with one team. Woodson will get his chance to tie George Karl, who went 19-1 at home with the Denver Nuggets in 2005, for the best home start by a coach in two decades when the Knicks take on Karl's team Sunday. Woodson said that when he took over the team from D'Antoni last season, he thought the Garden was not one of the tougher places for opposing players to do well. Now, Woodson's players believe, that perception is changing. "His whole thing when he came in was we were going to protect our home floor," Tyson Chandler said of Woodson. Teams that come in have to feel like they have to go somewhere else to get a win on the road. It is worth noting that the Knicks" perfect record at home has probably been helped by the early part of this season's schedule. Five of the seven teams the Knicks have played at home have losing records. Still, there was also the Knicks" season opener against the Miami Heat, the N.B.A."s defending champions. In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, fans still filled the Garden and were rewarded with an emphatic 104-84 victory by the Knicks. A month later, that game remains memorable. And in the coming days and weeks, the Knicks will play a whole series of games at the Garden that are also likely to resonate. On Dec. 13, Mike D'Antoni returns to the Garden as the new coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. Four days after D'Antoni's appearance, Jeremy Lin will show up in New York for the first time since joining the Houston Rockets over the summer. The Knicks and Lin have already gotten reacquainted, but that game was in Houston and probably did not have the voltage that this one will. Just two days after Lin arrives, the Nets will play their first game in the Garden as the team from Brooklyn. Woodson, of course, would like to win every one of those games, too. Maybe the Knicks will. Right now, they have made New York a place that isn't so nice to visit.