MIAMI – Tim Hardaway darn near growls when his knee is offered into evidence as probable cause for a poor performance. If ever Hardaway could have pointed to his hyperextended right knee and said “blame that, not me,” it was yesterday.
What’s the phrase for Hardaway’s performance? Well, since “injury-induced” can’t be used, go with “nauseatingly wretched.”
Hardaway, who injured his knee back in the early days of the season and played the past two months in pain – uncomplaining pain – was 4-of-19 from the floor in Miami’s 95-75 defeat.
So many times he had the chance to be the Hardaway who so often has buried opponents with 3-point knives to the heart or spirit-slicing forays down the lane. But virtually every time Hardaway tried to come up big in a big spot, the ball found iron. Or glass. Or even worse, air.
Hardaway’s final attempt of the day was a 3-point airball with 6:29 left. Mercifully, Heat coach Pat Riley yanked him to a soft chorus of boos from what remained of a crowd.
“The injury is not an excuse. Too much has been made of the injury,” said Hardaway. “I had five or 10 open shots. My teammates had open shots and just missed them. When you miss open shots and then they come down and hit theirs, it really hurts.”
Suffice to say this exercise yesterday was brutally painful for the Heat.
“We’re men and we understand what went on,” said Hardaway, who finished with 10 points and, shockingly, more turnovers, four, than assists, three.
“We’ve just got to come back and make shots,” he said. “I’m very shocked at what happened. We took it kind of tough. But we have to put this game behind us. We can’t think about it, come back talking about getting revenge. We’ve just got to play harder, play with a lot of passion.”
If Hardaway duplicates his Game 1 performance the rest of the way, Miami might as well go home now and stop wasting everybody’s time. The Heat need Hardaway – a reasonably healthy Hardaway – to avoid joining Seattle as the only No. 1 seed ever to lose to a No. 8 seed (and like the Knicks with Patrick Ewing, Denver dumped the Sonics with a Georgetown center, Dikembe Mutombo).
Riley, who looks upon injuries as matter of course, admits Hardaway has been in pain.
“Tim took a shot in February on his leg and I will agree, I think there are some lingering effects,” Riley said. “But he’s a pro. Patrick’s playing with an Achilles problem. He’s [Hardaway] a warrior. He hasn’t made any excuses. He’ll fight through that.”
And Knick coach Jeff Van Gundy is certain he’ll hear from Hardaway in a loud and painful fashion before this series is complete.
“It’s the same as last year,” Van Gundy said. “They talk about him hurt, and then he [sticks it to the Knicks]. I’m not questioning that [injury], but he’s going to [hurt us].”
