Hardaway finds positives in heart breaking defeat
At some point, it will set in for Tim Hardaway Jr. that the Knicks blew a 23-point lead and lost to the Cavs Monday. “Twenty-three?” he said meekly. Yep, count ’ em 23. But to Hardaway, this still so-early Knicks season is about forging identities, working and getting better. So yeah, the 104-101 loss to Cleveland after leading by — ahem — 23 will sting like a nest of hornets. But Hardaway wants to look at and grasp other facets.
For starters, the Knicks led the Cavs by 23 points.
“You always take the positives out of every game,” said Hardaway, who led all scorers with 28 points and grabbed 10 rebounds for his second double-double in three games. “Up 23 points against the champions from two years ago, last year’s finalists, contenders, it’s great. It says a lot about our group, our togetherness and our identity as a team we’re trying to build.”
So glass half full time. The Knicks outscored the Cavs, 76-61, through three quarters. OK, if you must they got outscored 43-25 over the final 12 minutes. But how about that Frank Ntilikina? He stood up to LeBron James, did
you hear?
“We’re trying to build an identity here and it shows we have each other’s back,” Hardaway. “Nobody’s on an island. It was great to see that. Frank is not going to take anything from nobody. It was great to see Enes [Kanter] back him up.”
Hardaway hit some big shots all night — or at least when the Knicks were building and sustaining their lead in the face of repeated attempted comebacks by the Cavs. But eventually, LeBron James was LeBron James and he forged a seven-point, eight-assist, four-rebound fourth quarter. The Cavs sank nine 3s in the fourth, five of them by Kyle Korver. James, incredibly, assisted on six of the 3pointers, hit one himself against 7-foot-3 Kristaps Porzingis. See LeBron. Swarm LeBron. See LeBron find open shooters.
“It’s tough. He’s a driver first. Once he gets a couple shots, a couple 3s going he’s hard to stop. That’s why he’s one of the best. And it doesn’t help us when you’ve got shooters all around the perimeter because they can snipe you,” Hardaway said. “It’s tough, 23 points. It didn’t feel good. We can’t let it linger over to the next game.” Yeah but those positives … “It doesn’t mean anything if you don’t play all 48 minutes and we didn’t do that,” Hardaway said.