Hamilton: Pablo Prigioni and Jason Kidd Are Unsung Heroes In Knicks Game 2 Victory

NEW YORK — Call it irony, but with Floyd Mayweather watching from Madison Square Garden’s expensive seats, in the third quarter, the New York Knicks began to resemble a spent prizefighter.

And although Carmelo Anthony turned in an inspiring performance, it was the combination of Pablo Prigioni and Jason Kidd that made the Pacers throw in the towel.

Prigioni will turn 36 years old later this month and Kidd, at 40 years old, is older than Pacers head coach Frank Vogel, who is 39.

Yet Mike Woodson’s two elder statesmen combined to ensure that the series would head to Indianapolis tied up, 1-1.

And together, they helped the Knicks dismantle the Pacers, 105-79.

Offensively, Kidd has struggled lately. He has not scored since Game 2 of the Celtics series. That was 13 shots, 15 days and 144 minutes ago.

But in Game 2 of this series, Kidd’s presence was felt. Defensively, he battled the younger Pacers guards all night long. He forced out-of-bounds turnovers for which he is not credited.

One play in particular stood out. Guarding the quicker D.J. Augustin—who torched the Knicks in Game 1—Roy Hibbert set a screen on Kidd. Kenyon Martin, guarding Hibbert at the time, showed hard on the screen and he and Kidd trapped Augustin, who ended up throwing the ball out of bounds.

On the ensuing play, the Knicks scored. That is a four-point swing that Kidd gets no credit for in the box score. And these types of plays happen all the time.

Two such plays that he did get credit for, though, are representative of what he can do on the court, even if he is not scoring. On a routine play in the second quarter, with 7:50 remaining, Iman Shumpert cut from the right wing diagonally through the lane. Kidd, threaded the needle between two defenders and hit Shumpert with a bounce pass from the top of the key.

Shumpert caught it in stride and finished en route to a rather impressive game of his own—15 points, six rebounds, three assists.

Yet, despite the spirited first half, the Knicks let up late in the second quarter and ended up carrying just a five point lead into the locker room.

Over the first nine minutes of the third quarter, the Pacers outscored the Knicks 22-15. They took their only two-point lead of the game with 3:28 remaining in the period, 64-62. The Garden was silent and nervous.

To his credit, Anthony did what franchise players do—he responded. Anthony scored five straight points for the Knicks and recaptured the lead with a thunderous dunk on Jeff Pendergraph. Pendergraph was whistled for the foul, and the Pacers were collectively hit with an uppercut

Not surprisingly, it was after that—with Prigioni and Kidd on the floor together—that the Knicks knocked the Pacers out.

Prigioni reentered the game shortly after the Anthony dunk. There was 42 seconds remaining in the third and the Knicks were winning by three points.

On the final play of the quarter, Kidd rebounded a J.R. Smith miss that was sailing out of bounds. He tipped it to Tyson Chandler, who dunked it in for a six point lead entering the fourth.

Collectively, the Garden exhaled.