The New York Knicks have lost plenty of games this season in a variety of devastating ways, but Monday’s loss to the Washington Wizards at home may take the cake for the worst loss of the season.
New York got off to a slow start and was down 53-42 at half time. John Wall went off in the first half with 19 points, but a determined Knicks team came out firing on all cylinders in the second half. They held Wall to just one point for the remainder of the game and outscored the Wizards 35-22 in the third quarter. The execution down the stretch was seemingly enough to come away with a much-needed victory. Then the final 24 seconds of the game happened.
Bradley Beal, who hasn’t played since playing the Knicks back on Nov 23 due to a leg injury, was on fire in the fourth quarter. He scored 14 of his 21 points in the final period, including the final seven points of the game. Yet, he somehow found himself isolated against Beno Udrih – probably the worst defender on the team at this point – and easily drove past him through the baseline for an easy layup to give his team the 101-100 lead.
(Vine clip courtesy of Amin Elhassan of ESPN)
As mentioned in the clip, Beno was looking for help but received none from Andrea Bargnani, who decided to casually follow Marcin Gortat to the top of the key despite seeing Beal going away from the screen. To make matters worse, the Knicks had a foul to give, which obviously wasn’t used.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, an even bigger disaster followed the play. Despite having three timeouts left to call a play, no one on the Knicks – not the players, not Mike Woodson – had it in their mind to call one. With 6.9 seconds left in the game, there was more than enough time for them to get a high-quality shot. If nothing else, they could have inbounded the ball from half court. Instead, Carmelo Anthony casually dribbled up the full length of the court thinking Woodson would call a timeout (?). When a call wasn’t made, he started moving faster but by that time, all he could do was throw up a desperate heave which failed to hit the rim.
Ball game.
Reggie Miller saw all the action and couldn’t believe what he was seeing:
What NY Knicks??? Call a timeout….. SMH…
— Reggie Miller (@ReggieMillerTNT) December 17, 2013
It looked as though New York had this one in the bag. Udrih had a chance to put his team up by two points after getting fouled by Wall with 24 seconds left, but managed to hit only one free throw. From there, things probably could not have gone any worse for a team that remains one of the top five worst teams in the league at 7-17.
Woodson blamed himself for not calling a timeout at the end of the game, from Ian Begley of ESPN New York: “I didn’t call the timeout so I’ve got to take the heat for that.”
After hearing that comment, Anthony had this to say, from Steve Popper of The Record: “If he says it’s his fault, it’s his fault.”
Well, then.
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James Park is the chief blogger of Sheridan Hoops. You can find him on twitter @SheridanBlog.