NO WINSKI!
Blundering Knicks fall to Mavs on Dirk’s lucky buzzer-beater
After the first bounce I said, ‘We’re going to overtime,’ and then I saw it go back in and it was over.
— CARMELO ANTHONY
As defeats go, this was one the Knicks could not even bother to rank.
“They’re all tough,” Tyson Chandler said.
Some are tougher than others, like Monday night’s gut punch courtesy of the Mavericks.
“It’s like a needle in a balloon right there. It just sucks all the air out of you,” was how Carmelo Anthony — who topped 40 points for the third time in four games with 44 points — described the last-second shot by Dirk Nowitzki that made the Mavs 110-108 winners at the Garden.
The Knicks lost for their third straight game and ninth in 11 to fall 15 games under .500.
Some losses are more diff icult to take. As improbable as the Knicks’ recent collapses have been, this defeat was just as deflating. They came back from an eight-point deficit with 1:27 left and forced a tie with 50.3 seconds left when Anthony nailed his seventh 3-pointer.
The Knicks were helped along by Dallas making bonehead play (offensive foul) after bonehead play (fouling, an and-one) after bonehead play (offensive foul). But the Knicks forced a tie, not overtime. Nowitzki made certain.
After the costliest of the Knicks’ 21 turnovers, a 24-second shot clock violation with 9.4 seconds left, the Mavs went to Nowitzki for the win. Nowitzki was basically wearing Antho- ny when he shot from 19 feet straight out. The ball hit rim. Bounced up. Fell through.
“I was just hoping that he missed it. After the first bounce I said, ‘ We’re going to overtime’ and then I saw it go back in and it was over,” Anthony said. “He hit a tough shot. You can’t take that away from him.”
Nowitzki (15 points), who had been scoreless since the 6:15 mark of the third quarter, thought he wasted his chance.
“I waited a little too long and by the time I looked up, there was not enough time,” Nowitzki said. “It was def initely an ugly shot but I am glad it went in.”
Chandler felt Anthony could not have done anything more.
“I thought Melo played great defense on that last shot, especially when I saw it hit the rim. I thought it was out. Very shocked when it rolled in,” Chandler said.
What made it more painful was how the Knicks, who trailed by 14 in the f irst half, botched their last possession. Anthony drove right and encountered Vince Carter (23 points). He bobbled and passed to J.R. Smith with about three ticks on the shot clock. Smith hoisted from 22 feet with Dallas’ Monta Ellis (22 points) in his face — and according to Smith — on his arm. The shot was short.
“We wanted to get the ball to Melo, of course, and we couldn’t get a shot off, He swung it to me,” said Smith (15 points). “They made a great contest.”
Smith thought there was contact — “I got hit,” he said. Coach Mike Woodson concurred.
“When Melo went into his move, he lost the handle of the ball and he got jammed, so he couldn’t get his shot where he wanted it and then we passed it out,” said Woodson, who gave Amar’e Stoudemire (9 points) his first start of the season. “It’s a rush situation with 3, 4 seconds on the shot clock. J.R. tried to get it off. I thought he got bumped, but they’re not going to make that call. Then Dirk just hit a hell of a shot. What can you say?”
Nothing that can be printed in a family paper.
Anthony stood and s ta re d after Nowitzki’s shot. And it wasn’t because of one game.
“That shot right there, I felt like I couldn’t do nothing more, nothing better,” said Anthony. “We had a chance to get a better shot than we did when we had the ball. … The accumulation of us losing again. Just trying to take all of that in.”
So there was little for Anthony to savor in his fifth 40-point game of the season.
“Pointless. ... It is tough. You score 40, 44, 44, 44, and all losses. You kind of ask yourself, ‘Is it worth it? I’m not going to stop what I’m doing,” Anthony said.
“Scoring all of that and taking L’s — I’ll take the W with 10 points,” Anthony said.
fred.kerber@nypost.com