Spectacular choke job as bad as it gets
GOOGLE Milt Palacio.
Until Sunday, Palacio represented as stinging a loss as a New York-area team has experienced. Like ever. It was against the Nets, who won all of 26 games in 2000-01. But of the 56 defeats suffered that season, none were tougher to take than that loss to the Celtics, courtesy of “Miracle Milt.” With under two seconds left and the Nets up two, Lucious Harris only had to inbound the ball. To a teammate. Instead, he tossed it into the wrong backcourt, Palacio intercepted and falling down, launched a 3-pointer that went in from beyond 30 feet.
The Nets were stunned. Harris was crushed. Nets boss Rod Thorn later admitted that, all things being equal, it was as bad a loss as he ever experienced. Which brings us to Sunday. The Knicks led by 19 points, 96-77, with 1:22 left in the third quarter. They led by nine, 105-96, after Enes Kanter dunked with 4:26 left in regulation. And they lost. Again. “We just have to do a better job of when we’re up 12, 15, 14 points,” Tim Hardaway Jr. said. That would be a swell idea. This one went to overtime, but once more the killer instinct remained as foreign to the Knicks as the Icelandic language as they went belly up, 123-118, after a near impossibly inept offensive fourth quarter at the Garden.
“So, so many similar games like this,” Kristaps Porzingis said after Anthony Davis danced on his and all the Knicks’ heads in a virtuoso 48-point performance, the most points scored by a Knicks opponent since James Harden went for 53 last season. “It’s painful. We need to do a better job at the end of games. It’s simple.
“Today one quote popped through my mind. It was, ‘A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor,’” Porzingis said in his philosophical bent. “So we just have to stay positive and try to find something positive. It’s a process. It’s not going to happen in one day. There will be moments when we get out of this and everything will seem great.”
Yeah, but with the way the Knicks are going, having lost 10of-12 with the next seven games on the road where they, well, stink, there first will be days when land- lords say the rent is on them, gas will be 30 cents a gallon and Trump won’t tweet.
“It’s definitely a tough one. We had the lead in the game and let it slip away. It’s definitely tough,” said Courtney Lee, who waved off the notion of forgetting and moving on.
“We shouldn’t put it behind us. We should use it as motivation,” Lee said. “We can’t keep putting ourselves in these positions. We keep talking about the same things after games. We’re up whether it be on the road or at home that we should win. Definitely don’t forget about it just use it as motivation.”
Well, then the Knicks should be highly, highly motivated. This happens a lot. They led the Bulls by 11 and lost. They led the Timberwolves by eight and lost. They lose close games.
“We got comfortable. We outplayed them for 36 minutes but to win in this league you’ve got to do it for ... 48 minutes,” Jarrett Jack said.
You’ve heard this before. Sunday was tough to endure.
“We had opportunities,” said coach Jeff Hornacek, who bemoaned the chance to stomp New Orleans early — the Pelicans began like a team that had spent Friday and Saturday in New York, after a week on Bourbon Street.
“They locked down the defense. Thought we got tentative for a stretch there when we did have the lead,” Hornacek said. “You’ve got to go take wins, you can’t think you’re just going to fall into them.”
And this one darn near had a Palacio moment. Jarrett Jack sought to inbound for the Knicks with the score tied and 2.3 seconds left in regulation. He tossed the ball in — to E’Twaun Moore, who unfortunately for the Knicks plays for the Pelicans. He took one of the Knicks’ 24 turnovers and launched a 3 but missed.
So the Knicks got to go to overtime to find as tough a loss as they’ve experienced in a while.