The bad news is that the shot didn’t count. The good news is that he had the stones to take and make what could have been a game-winner.
New York Knicks rookie phenom Kristaps Porzingis went through a rollercoaster of emotions on Wednesday against the Charlotte Hornets in what turned out to be a back-and-forth contest that truly came down to the wire. The Knicks played well for most of the game and had a 10-point lead heading into the fourth quarter before ultimately suffering a 95-93 loss that put them back below .500.
With the game tied at 93-93, Cody Zeller had a chance to put the Hornets up by two with 28 seconds left in the game. He missed both attempts (shot 8-of-15 from the line overall), but the Knicks failed to capitalize with Carmelo Anthony badly missing the potential game-winning shot with three seconds left in the game. That’s when Zeller made up for his missed free throws by making what turned out to be a game-winning layup over a terrible defensive miscue by Robin Lopez.
There was still some hope left for the Knicks with 0.6 seconds left on the clock. It was enough time to get a shot off, but not quite enough to catch, gather, turn and then shoot. Unfortunately, that’s what Porzingis did when he caught the ball from the top of the arc before draining what appeared to be the true game-winner.
Of course, the shot was waived off as the ball was still in Porzingis’ fingertips when the clock hit zero. It was tenths of a second too late, but showed the potential of things to come for the orange and blue.
Porzingis has already exceeded the expectations of most in the early going with averages of 11.6 points, nine rebounds, one steal and 1.2 blocks in his first nine games of the season. The future is bright for him and the Knicks, but it’s still tough to go through the growing pains as he did in this particular game against the Hornets and had the following reaction after the loss:
tough loss.. shot I always dreamt of making. Sucks.. but gotta stay positive and we have another chance this friday vs Cavs. Go Knicks
— Kristaps Porzingis (@kporzee) November 12, 2015
Jim Park is a blogger and editor of Sheridan Hoops. Follow him on twitter @SheridanBlog.