Knicks' loss in Game 5 is wake-up call to hoop dreams
Knicks’ Josh Hart and Deuce McBride tried to trap 76ers’ Tyrese Maxey in overtime of Game 5 of the first round of the NBA Playoffs at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday, April 30, 2024. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
This is what happens.
This is what happens when we start counting our playoff wins before they are hatched. This is what happens when an entire city starts plotting their team’s path to the NBA Finals when they are still not out of the first round.
For two days, Knicks fans have been giddy bordering on delirious about the way their team has played the first four games of the postseason, about the way they were able to build a 3-1 lead over the Sixers and the evil Joel Embiid by winning a huge game in Philadelphia on Sunday.
For two full days, the sun was out in New York and everything looked golden. The Knicks were on the verge of advancing to the next round. Indiana and Milwaukee, who the winner of the Knicks-76ers will play, both looked very beatable. And suddenly, the very unbeatable Boston Celtics looked vulnerable with Kristaps Porzingis having suffered a calf injury.
And then, as fate would have it, the Knicks came up with their worst game of the playoffs at the worst possible time, blowing a six-point lead with 28 seconds left in regulation and then losing, 112-106, in overtime.
Now, it’s back to Philadelphia, a place the Knicks thought they had left behind until next year when they came up with a big win in Game 4. The Knicks have a 3-2 lead, which means they have two chances to get the win they need to close out the series. But Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau was in no mood to look ahead after Tuesday night’s loss.
“Whether you win or lose, we have to have the same routine,” Thibodeau said after the game. “Come in, make corrections, find the things we have to fix and fix them.”
One thing they will have to fix is their defense on Tyrese Maxey. The 76ers guard scored seven points in the final 25 seconds of regulation. Maxey finished with 46 points which included shooting 7-for-12 from three-point range. Embiid nearly had a quadruple-double if you count turnovers. Embiid had 19 points, 16 rebounds, 10 assists and nine turnovers.
Jalen Brunson, who has carried the Knicks all season, was locked in a duel with Maxey most the night. Brunson scored 40 points and played 51 minutes. He also turned the ball over with 18 seconds left in overtime and the Knicks trailing by two, which the Knicks were never abler to recover from.
“Not good judgment on my part,” Brunson said. “Careless turnover in overtime. . . . Hats off to them. They kept flighting and playing.”
The Knicks had been hoping to close out the series on their homecourt, which is something that hasn’t happened in Madison Square Garden since they beat the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals in 1999.
Brunson was there to witness history when the Knicks last closed out a playoff series at Madison Square Garden. He doesn’t remember much, of course, given that he was 2 years old and sitting in the stands with his mother, Sandra, watching the Knicks team his dad, Rick played for.
Knicks fans have been a noticeable factor in this Philadelphia series, even on the road as they showed up en masse for both games in Philadelphia and were definitely a factor getting underneath Embiid’s skin. After the 76ers’ Game 4 loss, Embiid said it was “disappointing” that so many Knicks fans had flooded the arena, adding “it’s not OK.”
After Game 4, a video of Knicks fans celebrating on Wells Fargo Concourse repeating an obscene chant about Embiid went viral. That chant surfaced again Tuesday night before the arena went deathly quiet in the final seconds.
The Knicks have faced multiple challenges all season, and found ways to win despite losing three of their starting players. Now they have to find a way to bounce back after losing this game the way they did.
“Extremely tough,” Josh Hart said of the loss. “That’s a game we should have won. But now all we can do is watch film and regroup and get ready for the next game, whenever that is. Our mindset now is get a win. I think it’s nothing different. Nothing changes in preparing ourselves or the objective. That’s the same.”
The next game is Thursday in Philadelphia. If there is a Game 7, it would be Saturday — which heading into Tuesday night was the day everyone thought they would be starting their next series. Instead, the Knicks and their fans have to just take one game at a time and go back to Philadelphia, a place they know they can win.
Said Brunson: “We are going to have confidence regardless. It’s not the time to hang our heads no matter what the situation.”
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
