THIS IS THE WORST!
Knicks fall to Hawks in ‘toughest’ loss of season
AS a fitting prelude to the Super Bowl, a couple of crucial officiating decisions went against the Knicks on Sunday and resulted in their most disastrous loss all season.
With the trade deadline looming on Thursday and their precarious playoff standing fading fast, the Knicks overcame a wretched first half only to blow a late six-point lead and fall, 99-96, to atlanta, the worst team in the NBA, at the Garden.
Jeff Hornacek glumly dubbed it the “toughest” loss of the year, courtney Lee thought it was the “most embarrassing” and $71 million man Tim Hardaway Jr. — who again was involved in several of the key plays that didn’t go the Knicks’ way during the fourth-quarter collapse — didn’t call it anything because he ducked out on the media following his second straight poor performance.
With one game remaining — Tuesday at home against Milwaukee — before Thursday’s 3 p.m. trade deadline, the Knicks (23-31) slipped back to four games beneath the playoff cutoff in the Eastern conference. They also were 23-31 when Derek Fisher was fired one day after the Super Bowl in 2016.
“Honestly, the feeling is that I can’t even process that we lost. I can’t believe it,” Kristaps Porzingis said after the fading Knicks’ third straight loss. “It was our game. It was hundred percent our game. Stuff happened quick, and boom, it was over.
“We don’t know how to finish games. We don’t know how to win games at the end. We didn’t close out the game at the end again and it was a loss.”
Even watching countless hours of football pregame shows had to be more interesting than the dreadful first half for the Knicks, who shot just 35.6% from the floor and trailed, 44-38, at intermission. Porzingis, Hardaway and Enes Kanter (10 points, 12 rebounds) shot a combined 2-for-16 through two quarters, but that trio accounted for the Knicks’ first 13 points of the third for a 51-51 tie.
With the Knicks leading by three with just under four minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, however, atlanta’s Kent Bazemore was awarded three free throws. after he missed the first two, neither team, nor the officials, noticed he
still had one shot remaining, and Hardaway was fouled after dunking the ball at the other end.
Following a review — and according to NBA Rule 2, Section VI, a-f — Hardaway’s sequence was nullified and Bazemore went back to the line for his third free throw, sinking the shot.
“If they catch something within 24 seconds, they can just go back. as far as I know, they were pretty confident with their ruling there, and so I don’t think there’s anything (to protest). If that’s the rule, that’s the rule,” Hornacek said.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” added Porzingis. “But even with all that, it was our game. We just didn’t finish it. We don’t know how to win yet. For me, that’s the thing. Until we learn how to execute and do the right thing at the end, we’ll drop games like this, our games, for sure.”
consecutive buckets by Porzingis and Kyle O’Quinn provided the Knicks with their biggest lead, 93-87, with barely two minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, but Hardaway, who scored nine points after shooting 1-for-14 in Friday’s last-second loss in Milwaukee, inexplicably hoisted up a shot with 22 seconds remaining on the shot clock following a missed free throw by Porzingis.
“We all know it wasn’t a good shot,” Porzingis, who netted 16 of his 22 points in the second half, said of Hardaway’s decision. “Tim should have (pulled it out), and he knows it. We all make mistakes. Shot the ball too early, should have kept the ball and let the time run out and make a play there. Stuff happens. We make mistakes. I missed the free throw. He got the rebound. It happens.”
consecutive threes by Mike Muscala and Bazemore put the Hawks (16-37) up by two with 6.7 seconds remaining.
Hardaway then was called for stepping on the sideline after receiving a return pass from Trey Burke (14 points) off the ensuing inbounds pass in the front court, and the ruling was upheld by video review. Hardaway also missed a potential game-tying three-pointer at the buzzer.
“We wanted to try to get those two guys, either KP or Tim. Tim had a great look at it,” Hornacek said. “That’s a tough loss. That’s probably the toughest of the year for us…again, these are games that hopefully we can learn from.”