Blazers 92 – Knicks 89
The good news is that the Knicks didn’t have any trouble snapping the ball last night.
The bad news is that they did have trouble attempting a three-pointer.
That’s right – attempting a three-pointer. Allan Houston’s botched final play ruined a fine outing otherwise and the Knicks dropped a 92-89 heartbreaker to the Blazers at the Garden.
With the Knicks down three points with just 6.7 seconds left, Don Chaney’s crew obviously needed a three-point bucket to tie. But after Houston received the inbounds pass behind the arc, Scottie Pippen jumped out to guard him.
With no room to shoot a three, Houston’s instinct took over. He drove around the 6-7 Pippen and lofted a foul-line jumper. The shot missed but it barely mattered. There was just a tenth of second remaining anyway.
“It was a bad decision. I just rushed it,” Houston said. “When there’s six seconds left, you’ve got to shoot a three.
“I know I should have shot a three. It’s going to be hard not to think about it all night.”
Especially since Houston also failed to spot Latrell Sprewell open behind the three-point line.
“Bonzi [Wells] kind of fell asleep at the end,” Sprewell said of the man guarding him. “I don’t think Allan saw me.”
In all fairness, Sprewell was behind Houston and said it would have been tough for Houston to find him.
Still, Houston, who played an outstanding game otherwise, scoring a game-high 29 points on 12-for-23 from the field, acknowledged the error and refused to make excuses.
“I had plenty of options,” Houston said. “I just rushed it. I didn’t think before I caught the ball. I wasn’t mentally prepared at that time.”
It didn’t help that Pippen was on him. Even at age 37, Pippen remains one of the game’s best defenders. Indeed, Houston admitted that Pippen’s long arms and athleticism had disrupted his thought process.
“I saw Pippen running out and I was trying to get the shot off,” Houston said. “My instinct was to go past him because he was so close.
Said Pippen of his last-second defense, “I’ve still got a little bit left.”
Of course, in seeing their three-game winning streak snapped, the Knicks (12-18) had more problems than just the final possession.
Kurt Thomas slogged through a miserable outing, scoring just three points in 20 foul-plagued minutes. The Knicks had problems with the Portland press, turning the ball over twice because of eight-second counts.
“We can’t have that,” Sprewell said. “We work on it all the time.”
The problems led to a 21-4 third-quarter run for the Blazers that catapulted them from a 51-46 deficit to a 67-55 lead.
An early fourth-quarter push cut the margin to two, but then the Knicks suffered a Giants-like offensive stretch where they went five and a half minutes without a field goal.
The culprits were everywhere – Houston hit all glass on a jumper. Kurt Thomas couldn’t convert a short putback. Howard Eisley clanged an open three.
“We were just missing shots,” Thomas said. “We had good looks and they just didn’t go down.”
Still, they wouldn’t quit. Houston and Sprewell rallied the team in the final minutes, Sprewell scoring seven of his 16 points in the final 2:35, hitting a huge three-pointer off a Houston feed to cut the margin to one with 18.7 seconds left.
Wells (22 points) hit two free throws to push it to three. And with the Garden rocking, with everyone standing, with a chance to win their fourth straight, the Knicks got the ball to their best player with the game on the line.
But he rushed it.