NEW YORK — Under the Madison Square Garden circumstances, this ending was unforgivable. Now the Knicks had better make sure it is not unforgettable, too.
They carried a 12-point lead into the fourth quarter against a clearly inferior opponent, the Atlanta Hawks. This should have been an uncontested layup.
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This should have been a 360-degree dunk on the way to a 2-0 series lead and either a first-round sweep or the gentleman’s version — a victory in five games.
But something most unfunny happened on the way to a barely interesting warmup act before Knicks-Celtics in the second round. The home team powered down prematurely and, with a staggering 107-106 loss to Atlanta, put a doomsday scenario into play.
It is now conceivable that in this NBA Finals-or-else season, the Knicks could go one-and-done.
And if they actually blow this series to the Hawks, it will stand among the more devastating defeats in the history of a franchise that has endured its share of devastating defeats, on and off the court.
Forget about ending a championship drought that dates back to 1973. The Knicks are officially fighting for their basketball lives now. They could very easily lose one of the next two games in Atlanta, and turn this best-of-seven into a best-of-three against an underdog growing more dangerous and fearless by the possession.
Before Game 2, the Hawks’ Quin Snyder conceded that his young and restless team was “happy to be here, grateful to be here,” and frankly, it was odd to hear those words spill out of a playoff coach’s mouth.
“But at the same time,” Snyder pivoted, “I just don’t want to put a ceiling on this group. We are young (and it’s) the first time our core guys have been in this situation. … I think it’s also true that you can embrace the opportunity to have success in the playoffs as well.”
Did the sixth-seeded Hawks ever do that in the fourth quarter, when the head coach of the third seed, Mike Brown, noticed that the Knicks were the second-most aggressive team on the floor.
“You could tell that they were playing with a level of desperation,” Brown said of the Hawks.
The Knicks? They were tissue-paper soft when it mattered most, the most damning thing you can say about an alleged contender.
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Their final trip down the floor pretty much said it all. CJ McCollum, who spent the night blowing by Jalen Brunson on his way to 32 points, tried to gift the Knicks the ballgame by missing two free throws with 5.6 seconds left.
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Josh Hart grabbed the rebound of the second miss, took two dribbles, and fired a chest pass to Mikal Bridges, who was racing down the left sideline. Rather than attack the basket and either score or draw a foul, Bridges predictably chose the path of least resistance and pulled up for a fadeaway jumper with 1.4 seconds left before backpedaling into the Atlanta bench.
It wasn’t even close.
“Trying to make a move,” Bridges said in a quiet Knicks locker room. “Got to a spot I like. Just got to make it next time.”
Two nights after delivering a lights-out coaching performance in Game 1, Brown was no better than his players in Game 2. In fact, he was more to blame than most.
He didn’t use his use-it-or-lose-it timeout, and then, with 2:43 left, wasted one while his best player, Brunson, was driving to the goal.
“We had a couple of possessions (that) weren’t fluid,” Brown explained, weakly, “so I wanted to make sure that we had something that we wanted to get to, or to set something up offensively, because we had whiffed on the last couple of possessions.”
Though he claimed he wasn’t sure if he would have used it, Brown needed a timeout in his hip pocket for that final play. He needed to draw up something for Brunson or Karl-Anthony Towns so the Knicks could hold serve at home.
But then again, Brown spent far too much time in Game 2 trying to prove that the Knicks could survive, even thrive, with Brunson and KAT planted in seats next to him on the bench.
As you might expect, the numbers say the Knicks were a better team this season with at least one of their top two stars on the court, a fact that Brown tried and failed to dance around in his postgame news conference.
In the end, this ungodly mess of a result was about far more than the reason Bridges had to take the final shot on the fly. The Knicks missed 10 of 27 free throws. They committed too many costly turnovers and didn’t beat the Hawks to enough 50-50 balls.
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This Knicks giveaway summoned painful reminders of postseason Garden choke jobs suffered against a different opponent, the Pacers, past and present. The dramatic Game 1 comeback last year in the Eastern Conference finals, highlighted by Tyrese Haliburton’s wing and a prayer that forced overtime. Of course, who among the old timers could forget Reggie Miller’s fourth-quarter heroics in the ’90s?
The Knicks recovered from one of Miller’s miracles to win a series. They didn’t recover from Haliburton’s, and Tom Thibodeau lost his job as a result.
In the lead-up to Game 2, the most recognizable Knicks figure from those Reggie days more than 30 years ago, Patrick Ewing, was holding court courtside, shaking hands and posing for pictures. He was done telling a familiar face from the old days about his son, Patrick Jr., now a coach in Australia, when he was asked if he thought this Knicks team could win the East.
Ewing looked like he had seen a ghost. “You know I can’t talk about that,” he said through a laugh before retreating to the baseline.
By the end of the night, the Knicks didn’t even remotely resemble a team that could reach the Finals. They scored a grand total of 15 points in the fourth quarter, when big KAT was suddenly out of commission.
“We’ve got high-character guys who will respond well,” said Josh Hart.
The Knicks had better respond. They just gave life, hope and a reason to believe to an overmatched team.
It is unforgivable for the time being. It will be unforgettable, in the worst possible way, if the Hawks somehow win this series.