by Sam Amick, USA TODAY Sports

Long before the 17 NBA seasons of cerebral point guard play, the “Mama there goes that man…” catchphrases during his commentating days or these last two years as head coach of the Golden State Warriors, Mark Jackson was the kid in the corner of his Queens bedroom listening to New York Knicks games on the radio or watching them on Channel 9.

Every. Single. One.

“I’d announce them, envision myself playing alongside Earl Monroe, and then I would call timeout and design plays,” Jackson told USA TODAY Sports by phone on Tuesday. “I pretty much, as far back as I can remember, dreamt of being a player, of being an announcer and a coach.”

Which is why today is so special for Jackson and his family.

Jackson, whose Warriors are the surprise squad of this NBA season, will make his coaching debut inside the hallowed grounds of Madison Square Garden where all those aspirations that have since been fulfilled were born. His mother, Marie Jackson, will make the trip from Long Island to see her son roam the sideline against the Knicks (33-20), while his son, Mark II, will take a break from his basketball season at Manhattan College to stop by. His wife, Desiree, will fly in from Los Angeles and attend her first Warriors road game. His mother-in-law, Nicole Coleman, will also be there.

Yet Jackson, whose understated style and heady ways were honed at Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School, St. John’s University and during six seasons spent with the Knicks, will be thinking about the family members who won’t be there to share his moment as much as the ones who will be. His father, Harry, who took Mark to a handful of Knicks games as a kid and would sit with him up in the rafters, who was married to his mother for more than four decades, passed away 14 years ago. His brother, Troy, who was better known as “Escalade” from the And1 Streetball tour, died at the age of 35 three years ago and – according to Jackson – would have been an assistant on his Warriors coaching staff … [For more on Mark Jackson makes coaching debut at MSG, click here.]